


They Radiate Like Stars

by farseersfool



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (for part 2) i hope u guys like ocs as much as i do, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amputee!Marco, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Underage Drinking, Warnings for casual ableism, alcohol cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 19:26:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farseersfool/pseuds/farseersfool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was almost fifteen, Marco was in an accident that cost him an arm and an eye. Years later, in college, he meets Jean, the first person who sees him as a person, instead of the missing limb and the scars. And it's great. Really, it's great. And as for Jean? Well, he's never had a friend quite like Marco, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They Radiate Like Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Beta for part one was PinkGloom92.tumblr.com; I appreciate the help a ton!!
> 
> Title is a line from Mountain Laurel by Shearwater

The study rooms in the library sat about four-to-six people comfortably, but Jean had been lucky enough to grab one for himself. He had set up his laptop and spread out his textbooks and had managed to be really productive for a few hours—but he was starting to get burnt out. He stared at the history textbook like he could terrify it into giving up its secrets. It remained inert upon the table, and he let out a derisive snort that he had expected anything different.

Maybe a mental break would do him some good, he thought, waking up his computer and opening a game of Tetris. He hadn't been playing for more than a minute when there was a knock on the door to the study room. He sighed and paused his game. _Please do not be someone's study group asking if they can use this room,_ he thought, getting up to answer the door, _I cannot go back to my dorm room._

He looked out the glass pane in the door before opening it, and, no, didn't look like a study group, just one guy with dark olive skin, liberally splattered with freckles, and dark hair, looking away. A scowl affixed to his face, Jean pulled the door open.

“Yeah?” he said to get the guy's attention.

The guy looked over, and, damn, the side of his face that had been facing away from him was hella covered in scars. “Hey, sorry, I'm looking for somewhere to study and all the other rooms are completely full—would you mind if I joined you in here?”

There was a second, and the guy looked nervous. He shifted his backpack on his shoulder and Jean noticed that his right arm ended right above his elbow.

“I'll be quiet, I promise,” he said, and Jean only then realized that he was still scowling. He let his face go neutral.

“Yeah, no problem,” he said, moving aside so that the other guy could get into the room. Jean went back to his seat, but, with someone else in the room, felt uncomfortable resuming his game of Tetris, so he dug his backpack instead, pulling out his intro to psychology textbook.

On the opposite corner of the table, the other guy was also getting out a textbook, and Jean glanced over just as he set it on the table—hah, it was the same textbook.

“Are you in Psych 1305 too?” the guy asked, gesturing at their matching textbooks.

“Yeah, Mondays and Wednesdays at 11.”

“Ah. I've got it Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30. Who's teaching yours?”

“Dr. Zoe—red hair, glasses, kind of a spaz?” Jean offered, wondering why the guy was talking to him (but not really minding because he was really tired of studying).

“Oh, me too! Yeah, they're...interesting,” he said with a grin that pulled at the scarred side of his face. “I'm Marco, by the way.”

“Jean,” Jean said reflexively, and then his lack-of-filter kicked in, and he went ahead and asked, without preamble, what he'd been wondering about since this guy had turned to look at him. “So, Marco...what the fuck happened to you?”

Marco looked taken aback for a second, but then, he _laughed._

Jean was confused. He'd kind of expected the guy to be offended, but not for him to laugh at his question. “I swear to god, if you're about to say, 'it's kind of a funny story' or some shit like that,” he said, but Marco cut him off with a wave of his arm.

“No, it's just...I don't think anyone's come right out and _asked_ me about it before, and it's actually really refreshing. Usually people pretend like they don't notice, even though I _know_ they do, or they overdo it with the sympathy and pity and it's uncomfortable for everyone.”

Jean didn't say anything, and after a moment, Marco went on.

“I was about to turn fifteen, and I was in the car with my older brother. This huge truck—seriously, an absolute titan of a truck, came out of nowhere and slammed into my side of the car. My brother was fine—a wrenched shoulder and a concussion, but no lasting damage. I was, ah, lucky to get out alive, albeit short an arm and an eye.”

Jean's eyes went to the eye on the scarred side of Marco's face. He grinned, and pointed at it. “It's a prosthetic. I looked ridiculous with an eye patch.”

“Never woulda guessed,” Jean replied shortly.

“I've seen some pretty botched jobs; guess I got lucky,” he replied with a grin.

“Huh, yeah. That fucking sucks, though. The accident and all,” Jean said, the farthest extent of his sympathy.

Marco laughed again, and opened his textbook. Jean took that as a sign that their conversation was over, and, ever-so-vaguely disappointed, he opened his own as well, starting with the end-of-chapter quiz so he'd know what to study.

About three questions in, he gave up and went back to Tetris.

Time passed. “Are you playing Tetris?”

“Ah, shit, my sound's on, isn't it?”

“Yep,” Marco said.

“Mental break,” Jean said in his own defense.

“How long have you been in here?” Marco asked.

“Uhh—about three hours. My dumb roommate and his weird not-girlfriend were smoking pot in my room and I don't want to be around when they get caught.”

Marco nodded. Jean looked back at his screen and realized that he hadn't paused his game, and the blocks were piled up all the way to the top. He took it as an omen that maybe he should actually get back to looking at his textbook—the exam was only a week away.

He and Marco sat in silence for close to an hour, the only sounds the flipping of textbook pages, the scratching of a pencil against paper, and the occasional tapping of laptop keys as Jean googled things he didn't quite understand from the book.

As that hour passed, Jean's stomach got more and more insistent. The clock in the room said that it was nearing six in the evening, and he hadn't eaten since breakfast.

Abruptly, he shut his laptop and looked over at where Marco had looked up at the noise.

“Hey, I'm going to get dinner,” Jean said.

Marco nodded, and, was it just Jean's imagination, or did he look a little bit disappointed?

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked, a little awkwardly. He focused on putting his things away and didn't look up.

“Uh—no,” was the reply.

“Did you...want to join me?” Jean asked, spacing out the words so he didn't seem too eager. He wasn't sure why, but he'd taken to Marco. Maybe it was how open he was. Either way, Jean didn't like a lot of people, but Marco seemed pretty cool, and he didn't want their encounter to be over yet.

“Oh! Um. Sure,” he answered, and Jean did look up then. Marco smiled, then, and the unscarred half of his face was transformed by that smile. Jean found himself grinning in return.

 

-

 

Dinner had been great—Jean's aggressive, forceful personality really balanced Marco's more passive, turn-the-other-cheek one. Marco smiled to himself as he turned the doorknob to his empty room, thinking that he might have finally made a real friend. He got along well with lots of people—he was a really nice human being and he knew it, but it was hard for people to see him _as_ a human being when they saw him as a victim. He didn't think Jean had even for a second.

It was really great. His mind went back to one of the last things they'd said to each other.

“ _Hey, seriously, thank you for being upfront with me about--” he had gestured to his face._

_Jean had shrugged, a boiled carrot on his fork. “Blunt is kind of my MO,” he'd said, testing the waters. “A lot of people find it off-putting.”_

“ _Well. I really appreciate it,” was all Marco had been able to say._

They'd traded numbers, and he wondered if it would be weird to text him already. Well—maybe not if he had something legitimate to say.

He unlocked his phone and pressed the button to compose a new text.

To: Jean Valjean

Hey! How did the thing with your roommate end up?

The three minutes he spent waiting for a reply were some of the longest of his life. He took his textbooks out and wondered if he should try to read another chapter, but then it buzzed on the desk.

From: Jean Valjean

coulda been worse. The RD is making them clean the dorm kitchen as punishment but he didnt get the police involved—still glad I wasnt there

Marco grinned and began to compose a reply when he received a second text.

From: Jean Valjean

also, whats your last name? I have you in my phone as marco polo

He gave a short laugh then, and replied.

To: Jean Valjean

Haha! It's Bodt. And that's funny—I have you in as Jean Valjean. What's yours?

He didn't even have to wait a full minute for the reply.

From: Jean Valjean

seriously??? the guy from les mis? Anyway, its kirschstein

Marco quickly edited Jean's contact information to display the correct last name before texting back.

To: Jean Kirschstein

You know Les Mis? Also, thanks!

He managed to open the textbook to the right chapter and read about a page before his phone buzzed again.

From: Jean Kirschstein

yeah I had to read it in european lit last semester. Dont think I wouldve gotten through that brick without the sparknotes

He quickly typed a reply.

To: Jean Kirschstein

Yeah, 18th century French literature isn't my favorite either.

As soon as he hit the 'send' button, the door on the bathroom he shared with the room next door opened—Marco lived in one of the suite-style dorms, in which four people shared a bathroom that connected two rooms.

“Hey, Bertl and/or Marco,” Eren, one of his suitemates, said before coming into the room. “Do you have a stapler I can borrow?”

Marco pulled out his desk drawer, removed his stapler, and held it out to Eren. He took the few steps over to the desk and took the offered item, just as Marco's phone buzzed.

“Oh, hey, who are you texting?”

Marco started. Was Eren just being nosy or was he really that concerned for Marco's lack-of-a social life? “Um, this guy I met in the library today. A new friend, I hope.”

“Someone I might know?”

“I don't know,” Marco said, irrationally protective of his new friendship with Jean. “His name's Jean.”

Eren made a face. “Not Kirschstein.”

Marco blinked. “Yes, actually.”

“And you _got along_ with him?” Eren asked incredulously.

“Um, yeah.”

Eren just shook his head. “Good luck with that,” he said, in the same way he might wish luck upon someone determined to go skydiving into an active volcano. He held up the stapler in a gesture of thanks and retreated back through the shared bathroom.

Marco could definitely see how Eren and Jean would bump heads—from the conversations he'd had with them, they seemed to be on the opposite ends of the sliding scale of cynicism and idealism. He shook his head gently and went to answer his text.

 

-

 

It was over a week before Jean saw Marco again—they both had exams that week, so studying took up pretty much all of their time. Jean did text Marco a little bit, and learned that the poor guy was saddled with _Jaeger_ as a suitemate, ugh.

Jean's dorm room was quiet in the interim—his roommate, Connie, had an active social life to start with, and spent a full two days cleaning the dorm kitchen with Sasha. Honestly, he wasn't sure how they'd gotten it done _that_ quickly. Jean had been in there once. He never went back. But apparently it was up to residence director Shadis' standards, so by the third day, Connie and Sasha were free.

Jean shook his head at them. He didn't have the luxury of goofing off through his education. He had to keep above a 3.25 GPA to maintain his full-ride scholarship, and any minor criminal infraction was also grounds for losing it.

Either way, he seemed to be on track, because he checked the class website the day after the psychology exam and found that grades had already been posted. He'd made a 94.

He unlocked his phone to send a text to Marco.

To: Marco PoloBodt

psych exam grades are up!!

The reply came quickly.

From: Marco PoloBodt

I was just looking at them! I did pretty well!

He composed a reply.

To: Marco PoloBodt

yeah me too!

This reply took a bit longer, but his phone chimed after a few minutes.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Celebratory drinks at the campus coffee shop?

Jean glanced at the time; it was still pretty early in the evening, and he didn't have any homework due the next day. Plus, if he were to be honest with himself, something he avoided as a general rule, he just really wanted to hang out with Marco again.

To: Marco PoloBodt

i'm up for it. Now?

He'd barely set his phone down when it chimed.

From: Marco PoloBodt

I'm free if you are. Want to meet in the quad?

He got up to put his shoes on before texting Marco back.

To: Marco PoloBodt

kk. Be there in ~5 min

He slipped into some old Converse, shrugged on a jacket, and grabbed his room key, locking up on the way out. The quad was a really short walk from Jean's dorm, straight between the chemistry building and the clinical science building, then up a flight of stairs. But Marco had beat him there, and was sitting on one of the benches that lined the old academic buildings, shadowed in the dusky twilight under the trees.

“Marco,” he called out, picking up his pace and approaching. Marco stood up and smiled upon seeing Jean, and in the dimness his scars were barely noticeable, the right sleeve of his sweater safety-pinned up so it didn't flop around. He wondered, for just an instant, what Marco would be like if he hadn't been in that car crash five years ago—but the thought was out of his mind as quickly as it was there.

“Hey!” Marco greeted him, “It's cold tonight.”

“Well it _is_ only the middle of January,” Jean replied, as they fell into step headed toward the student center, where the coffee shop was located.

“Either way, it's nice to _not_ be studying for once.” Marco looked over to the west, where the last dark jewel tones of the muted winter sunset glowed on the horizon.

Jean made a _tch_ sound with the front of his mouth. “You can say that again.”

Marco made a noise of agreement and they walked in silence for a moment before he asked, abruptly, “I don't think you ever told me what you're majoring in?”

Thinking back, Jean replied, “Huh, no, I don't think I did. Weird, that's usually the first question you ask someone. Anyway, I'm pre-law.”

“So, law school when you finish up here?”

“Yeah.” Jean said with a nod, then, “You never told me your major either.”

Marco laughed, and he almost sounded nervous. “Well, when I was four, I wanted to be a member of the president's secret service. I thought that would be the coolest job in the world.”

Jean half-laughed. “And now?”

He shrugged. “I'm majoring in psychology. I'm thinking of going into trauma counseling for, you know, people that were in accidents like me.”

Jean didn't say anything, and after a moment, Marco went on. “I know I'm pretty over the whole 'hey, Marco's missing an arm, has one eye, and literally half his body is covered in scars' thing but, uh, it was a bit of a journey getting here. And the guy that was assigned as my counselor back then kept saying, 'I understand what you're going through,' but I never really thought he did, so...”

“I get it,” Jean said when it was clear Marco had run out of steam.

He gave the nervous laugh again. “Sorry for oversharing.”

“It's cool,” Jean said, and, though he was generally uncomfortable with 'feelings,' it actually was.

“Anyway, why did you want to go into law?” He asked, clearly changing the subject.

Jean thought about giving the farce of an answer he gave everyone else—he wanted to make enough money to live in one of those fancy gated communities and buy a nice car. But after what Marco had just told him, Jean found himself telling the truth.

“It's nothing noble like yours. Honestly? I'm in it for the money. My family is really poor. Like, having to wait until payday to get groceries even though there's nothing in the house to eat poor. So when I landed this full-ride scholarship here, well,” he shrugged, “I figured this was my opportunity to make sure that any family I might have never has to live like that.”

“Hey, no,” Marco replied quickly, “There's nothing wrong with that. Looking out for yourself isn't actually a bad thing.”

He took a moment. “...Yeah,” he said quietly. Then, deciding he'd had exactly 200% of his recommended daily heart-to-heart, “So. What have you been up to lately, besides studying?”

They moved on to lighter subjects after that, but Marco's words stuck with him.

_Looking out for yourself isn't actually a bad thing._

 

-

 

There was a large hall filled with tables attached to the campus coffee shop, and Jean and Marco wandered into it with their drinks, deciding to hang out for a while.

However, as soon as they walked into the area a familiar voice called out.

“Jean plus one! Come sit with us!” Connie.

Another, more hated voice, also called, “Marco!” _Jaeger._

They both looked over to where a group of tables had been pushed together, and quite a few people they both knew were there. Connie and Sasha were at one end, doing their weird platonic cuddling definitely-not-dating thing. Bertholdt, Reiner, and Annie, whom Jean suspected of being in a threesome, were sitting next to them. Ymir, who was terrifying, and her girlfriend Christa, who was a literal angel, were on the other side of Connie and Sasha, and next to them were Jaeger, Jaeger's groupie Armin (though Marco only had nice things to say about him, so Jean _might_ have to reevaluate his opinion), and Mikasa. Jean had developed a bit of a crush on Mikasa at the start of the previous semester, but upon seeing that it was hopeless, he'd given up pretty quickly. She was the kind of girl fourteen-year-old him would have pined over for years, beautiful and quietly confident, but nineteen-year-old Jean was a little more realistic.

“You want to join them?” Jean asked Marco.

“Well, it would be rude to walk away now,” Marco joked back.

The look Jean gave him made it very clear that he didn't care.

“Well...it could be fun?” Marco amended his statement, and Jean made a gesture of assent before taking a bracing swig of his drink and making his way over to the table, Marco a step behind.

The seat next to Reiner was directly across the table from Jaeger, but Jean rolled his eyes and silently promised himself that he would be civil as long as Jaeger was.

Marco took the seat next to him and waved a friendly greeting.

“What have you guys been up to?” he asked, sipping his drink. “It feels like I dropped off the face of the Earth, studying for those exams.”

Reiner shrugged and replied, “Pretty much the same. Do you think all the professors get together and plan to give their exams at the same time or is it just a coincidence?”

The group mulled this over for a while, and Jean was a bit chagrined to find that he and Marco pretty much had mostly the same mutual acquaintances, but had never met until a week ago.

As they eventually decided that, yes, college professors probably did all hang out on weekends and come up with new ways to make their students hate themselves, Jaeger interjected with a complete subject change.

“Did you guys read the news article on the bombing of that pharmaceutical plant over outside of Jinae?”

“Jinae?” Marco said immediately, “Was anyone hurt?” He was pale; Jean knew that Marco was from Jinae.

“Nah,” Eren said, oblivious, “It happened late at night after all the workers were gone. But it's rumored to be the work of the Titans.”

Jean rolled his eyes. There had been a major rise in organized crime all over the nation in the past decade or so, and the group responsible for it called themselves 'The Titans.' Jaeger was _obsessed_ with getting into the bureau of investigation and taking them all down. Despite the fact that it was _clearly impossible for just one person to take down a massive criminal organization oh my god would you just shut up about it._

“I read that report,” Jean said lazily. “It said that they _didn't know_ what caused the explosion, but that they weren't ruling out a bomb.”

Jaeger glared. “Sounds like Titans to me.”

Jean sighed and rested his head in the palm of one hand, propped up on his elbow. “Sometimes bad things happen and it's _not_ the Titans, Jaeger.”

He heard a soft “Here they go again,” from Sasha at the end of the table, popping a french fry into her mouth.

Armin hesitantly jumped in, “Either way, no one was hurt, so at least there's that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jaeger said, with a glare at Jean for good measure. Jean rolled his eyes again, and nodded agreement to Armin's statement. He looked over at Marco, who seemed uncomfortable, though at the tension at the table or at the accident in Jinae, he couldn't tell.

Nevertheless, he didn't pick any more fights for the rest of the evening, until they all unanimously decided to head back to the dorms. All in all, hanging out with everyone wasn't too bad, though he did kind of wish he'd actually gotten to talk to Marco.

On the way back they fell into step again, and the sky was full dark, fluorescent lamps illuminating the cobbled walk in pools of bright white.

They walked slowly, the rest of the group getting ahead of them.

“How do you know Eren, if you don't mind me asking?” Marco asked.

Jean huffed a half-laugh. “Political science last semester.”

“Ah, politics, the great destroyer of friendships.”

“Pretty much—Hey, you're Bertholdt's roommate, right? Is he in a threesome with Reiner and Annie?” Jean asked, complete non-sequiter.

Marco blinked. “I know Bertholdt an Reiner have a pretty serious thing, but I don't know about Annie.” He paused, and said wryly, “You're welcome to ask them.”

Jean clenched his teeth. “No, Annie scares me.”

Marco laughed, and said, “I'm with you there. She's really intense.”

“It's weird how we know all the same people,” Jean commented.

“Yeah, I was just thinking about that,” Marco agreed, “Guess it happens at a small university like this.”

Jean nodded but didn't reply. He wasn't really surprised he'd never met Marco—he was really only barely acquainted with the others from being in the same freshman classes or seeing them around the dorm (except for Connie, who literally slept in the same room as him). Jean spent a lot of his time studying, since he didn't want to jeopardize his scholarship—and so he could get into a good law school, in a few years, too. Plus, he was well aware that his tendency to say whatever came to mind made him hard to get along with (Though the same could be said of Jaeger, and yet Mikasa and Armin were disgustingly loyal to him).

Their conversation flowed after that, an easy thing, without the gravitas of their words on the way over. Upcoming movies, classes they had to take and were dreading and/or looking forward to, music they liked, which ended with Jean extolling the virtues of one of his favorite indie bands after Marco admitted to liking chill folksy music, and Marco calling him a hipster. He looked down at his worn, slightly-too-small jeans, and vintage graphic tee straight from a thrift shop and couldn't even deny it.

When they got to the place they'd met, and had to go separate ways to get to their dorms, Jean said, “We should hang out more often.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Marco agreed brightly.

“Text me sometime? I'm usually free after about four,” Jean said with an uncalled-for flutter in his stomach.

“I will,” Marco said, and he smiled a huge, unrestrained smile, and the expression made his face look downright gorgeous, despite the scars. _Well, shit._ Jean put the thought away to process later, or, preferably, never. They said their goodbyes and went back to their rooms for the evening.

 

-

 

The smile fell from Marco's face as the sound of Jean's footsteps retreated. He couldn't have a smart, charismatic, attractive friend and just _not_ start getting a crush, could he? That would be too easy. He sighed derisively at himself. It wasn't like he was ever going to do anything about it. After all, he hadn't had a legitimate friend in close to five years, and he didn't want to do anything to alienate this one.

 

-

 

Armin and Connie had the same Geography class, at 11 AM, and the same off-period right after, so they sometimes went to lunch together. They weren't super close, but they got along fairly well—sometimes they would do homework while they ate, or if they were less busy they would just sit and talk about their classes or mutual friends.

That Tuesday was one of the less-busy days, since the geography exam had been the previous week (Armin had gotten a perfect score—Connie had made a C), and the professor hadn't assigned any homework for the new chapter yet. Armin decided to take the opportunity to bring up the new dynamic in their friend group that he was certain _everyone_ had noticed.

“So,” he began as they sat down with their plates of food at the dining hall, “Marco and Jean have been hanging out a lot lately.”

And they _had—_ for the past two weeks, it hadn't been an unusual sight at all to find Jean in Marco's dorm room, doing homework or just hanging out. Armin honestly didn't have a clue when they had started hanging out but they seemed super comfortable around each other—which, he'd lived in the room next to Marco and Bertholdt's for half a year by that point, and it was really rare to see Marco that relaxed with anyone, so, yeah, he was a little curious.

Connie looked up at Armin's comment. “Yeah—I've noticed that too. It's kind of weird, right? I didn't think they would because Marco's so nice and Jean's so, well, Jean, but they sort of became instant-BFFs.” He grimaced, and speared a green bean on his fork. “Never let me say 'BFFs' again; I sound like my little sister.”

Armin smiled. “Noted. But the more I think about it, the more I can see how they get along.”

“Yeah?” Connie said around his food, making Armin grimace. He swallowed the bite. “What's that?”

Shrugging, he answered, “Well, Marco told me once that he really didn't like being pitied for, you know, the accident? If _anyone_ is going to show him no pity—”

“It's Jean,” Connie finished for him, and Armin nodded.

“Maybe Jean's particular brand of 'abrasive' is exactly what Marco needed. Plus, they're both really lonely people, I'm, like, 90% sure.”

“Huh?” Connie said, “I mean, yeah, Jean kind of keeps to himself, but he's not unfriendly—okay, wrong word—but, he's not unsociable.”

Armin shook his head. “Just calling it like I see it. Anyway, have you settled on a topic for the Geography paper? The topics are due in a week.”

“Oh, fuck me,” Connie said, dropping his fork onto the table and burying his face in his hands.

 

-

 

Marco was skimming through news articles on his tablet on a Friday afternoon when the door opened to reveal Reiner, followed by Bertholdt. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

“So, Marco,” Reiner said, and the tone of his voice confirmed Marco's suspicions. “If I give you twenty dollars, can you find somewhere else to sleep tonight?”

Marco sighed. This wasn't the first time this had happened (in fact, that was how he'd been in the library to meet Jean for the first time), though it hadn't ever been for a full night before. He looked over, and Reiner looked shameless, though Bertholdt was wiping his forehead nervously.

“Yeah, hold on,” Marco said after a minute or two. The easy thing to do would be to ask Eren and Armin if he could crash in there for the night, so he went through the bathroom to see if they were in the room.

He knocked, and heard a few voices tell him to enter.

“Hey,” he said, and was surprised to see Ymir and Christa, in addition to Eren and Armin, who actually lived there, and Mikasa, who practically lived there. They all looked up at him, and Christa smiled sweetly and waved.

“Hey, Marco,” Armin said, “What's going on?”

“Bertl and Reiner are kicking me out—I wanted to see if I could crash here, but if you guys are busy...”

Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, exchanged glances, and did the nonverbal we've-known-each-other-since-we-were-nine thing.

“We're having a chem cram session for the exam Monday. You can stay if you want, but we're going to be up really late,” Mikasa said softly, and Eren nodded at her words.

Marco's smile became a little forced. “I, um, I'll keep that in mind, but let me ask around first. Thank you!”

He closed the door quietly and went back through the bathroom to his own room, and found that Bertholdt and Reiner were gone, and, indeed, there was a neatly folded twenty sitting on top of his desk. Marco sighed and pocketed the bill before sitting down.

He considered where else he might stay, and Jean immediately came to mind, though he blushed at the thought. Maybe a bad idea. But better than crashing the study party next door. Steeling himself, he pulled out his cell phone and began composing a text.

To: Jean Kirschstein

Hey! Can I ask a pretty massive favor of you?

He got a series of replies that made him smile.

From: Jean Kirschstein

that depends on what it entails

From: Jean Kirschstein

I mean, if u need help hiding a body, sure

From: Jean Kirschstein

but if u want me to be nice to jaeger im not sure I can do that

Marco laughed slightly to himself and texted back.

To: Jean Kirschstein

Nothing like that—I need somewhere to sleep for tonight. Can I stay with you and Connie?

He had to wait quite a while for the reply, and it made him irrationally more and more nervous as the minutes passed. He ended up waking his tablet back up and trying to go back to the articles he'd been skimming, but he didn't really absorb any of the information.

His phone buzzed.

From: Jean Kirschstein

just got ahold of connie. Hes gone home for the weekend so ur free to stay. Are u getting kicked out so ur roommate can have sex with his boyfriend?

Marco laughed again, then blushed slightly to himself. Connie was gone, so he'd be alone with Jean. He tried to be a rational adult about it—after all, it wasn't like they'd be sleeping in the same bed or anything—but his _massive_ crush on his best (question mark?) friend was making it difficult. He shook his head to clear the thoughts and composed a reply.

To: Jean Kirschstein

Pretty much. Anyway, thanks. Can I head over soon? I don't know when they're going to be back.

This reply came much more quickly than the last.

From: Jean Kirschstein

yeah, head over whenever u want. p.s. There is such a thing as too nice and I think u might be it

He sighed with a grin and replied.

To: Jean Kirschstein

It was more of a bribe and less of a favor. I got $20 out of it. Also I'm gonna throw my stuff in a bag—be over in like 15?

He put some homework he had to do in his backpack along with a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt, and debated if he should put day clothes in the bag too, since it was a five minute walk between their dorms.

The phone buzzed.

From: Jean Kirschstein

Ive taught u well! Not a complete saint are you, freckled jesus?

He shook his head and didn't reply, deciding that, yeah, he should pack day clothes just in case. The backpack was full to bursting when he was done, but it had everything he needed. He hefted it over his shoulders—right first, then left—and made the short trek over to Jean's much older dorm.

He slipped in the front door and down the hall to Jean's room, knocking shortly.

“It's open,” Jean's said through the door. Marco tested the doorknob. It was locked.

“No, it's not,” he replied.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” he said, voice growing louder as he came to open the door.

Marco pushed the door open completely and went in, setting his bag down inside the door. He'd only been in Jean's room a few times, since Marco's room was bigger and his roommate was a lot less likely to be around. The building was a lot older, the rooms were smaller, and the bathrooms were community-style, which Marco wasn't sure how Jean could stand.

He pulled out Connie's desk chair.

“What have you been up to?” Marco asked as he took a seat.

Jean shrugged and gestured at his laptop, where he had reddit up on the screen. Marco grinned.

“Not gonna lie—when I was about 8, I was convinced that I was going to be out partying every Friday in college,” Jean admitted after a moment.

“Yeah, well, the movies don't prepare you for how _hard_ the classes are,” Marco grumbled, thinking of the homework he had to do by Monday.

“You're telling me. But seriously, it's a Friday night—I want to _do_ something.” Jean shifted restlessly.

“It's too bad you're still underage,” Marco commented absently.

Jean froze, and looked dead at him. “Wait, you're 21?”

“Um, yeah?”

“But you're a freshman!” He turned so that he was straddling the back of his desk chair.

Marco rubbed his right shoulder and hesitated before admitting, “Well, yeah, but I had to spend such a long time in the hospital, and then in physical therapy, that I got a little behind and graduated from high school late.”

“How long are we talking?” Jean asked, seeming genuinely curious, but not in a you-poor-baby way, and wow, he was really great.

Marco tried to play it off. “I was in a coma for almost 8 months.” His fingers were clenched in his shirt sleeve.

“That's a new level of suck, man,” Jean said, and Marco smiled and relaxed a bit. That was it. That was as sympathetic as he got.

“I got better,” he said, with a shrug and a small grin.

“I would say you're _all right_ now, but...” Jean said, brazenly, and Marco was so shocked for a second that he didn't laugh, but when he did, he just about fell out of the chair.

“That was a really lame joke,” Jean said, running a hand through the back of his hair.

“Yeah, but you actually _made_ one,” Marco said. He wasn't a fragile flower, and he had been supremely disappointed the last time someone had said something about cosplaying batman, and he'd offered to cosplay Harvey Dent with them, and everyone in the group had just been horrified.

“Either way, this works out for us,” Jean said, changing the subject.

“How's that?”

“You,” Jean pointed a finger in the direction of Marco's chest, “Buy us a bottle of whiskey, and we spend Friday night like college students are supposed to.”

Marco wasn't opposed to the idea—though he thanked every deity he could think of that he wasn't a flirty and/or horny drunk—but... “Aren't you worried we'll get caught? What about your scholarship?”

Jean looked at him like he was an idiot. “Are _you_ planning on telling the RA? It's not like alcohol is going to _set off the fire alarm._ ”

Marco put his hand up in a placating gesture. “Point taken. Should we walk to the nearest liquor store, then?”

“Dude, yes,” Jean said with the eagerness of a nineteen-year-old college student who hadn't had any real fun in months.

Jean took his backpack—because walking back into the dorm with a brown bag would have been really suspicious, and borrowed Connie's umbrella, because the clouds outside were threatening rain.

This district of the city of Trost had been built up around the university, so it was only a fifteen minute walk from Jean's dorm to the closest liquor store. They split off at that point, Marco going into the store, Jean going across the street to the convenience store to grab some soda.

Marco waved a polite greeting to the bored-looking cashier and wandered around the shelves until he found what he was looking for, selected a smallish bottle (he expected they were going to finish it tonight and he didn't want either of them to end up with alcohol poisoning) and took it up to the front. The lady checked his ID, he paid, and left. Jean had beaten him out, and was waiting by the corner of the building. He loaded the bag into Jean's backpack just as the first rumble of thunder sounded overhead.

The sky broke open not even a minute later, not a gradual progression from drizzle to downpour, but more like whoever operated the clouds had flipped the rain switch from 'off' to 'incredibly on' in one fell swoop. Jean opened the borrowed umbrella as soon as he could, but it wasn't quick enough to keep them both from getting a hit with a torrent of icy water.

“God damn it; I hate the weather this time of year,” Jean grumbled, holding the umbrella so that they could both stand under it. Marco tried not to be hyper-aware of the way their arms brush against one another from walking so close, but it was kind of impossible. He swallowed. Maybe getting really drunk with Jean was a bad idea.

Oh well. It was too late now. He could only hope that if he said something embarrassing that neither of them would remember it in the morning. The rain made them half-jog back to the dorm, and despite the umbrella keeping their hair and shoulders fairly dry, they both ended up soaked from about the chest down.

They opened the door and were confronted with Jean's RA, who raised an eyebrow at them and lazily commented, “You do know it's raining right?”

“Yeah, fuck you too, Oluo,” Jean replied with a rude gesture.

“Watch it, kid,” Oluo replied, but there was an amused grin on his face. Marco smiled apologetically and followed Jean down the hall to his room.

Marco sat back down at Connie's desk while Jean opened his laptop to start one of his playlists of illegally downloaded music, changing the first song quickly in embarrassment when it turned out to be sexy smooth jazz. After that, he opened his dresser, found a pair of shorts, and pulled them out.

“You gonna stay in your wet pants?” He asked Marco with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, uh, I guess not,” he replied, trying not to blush. His button-up was pretty soaked, too. He glanced up, and Jean was unbuttoning his jeans. Marco probably got whiplash with how quickly he looked away, edging over to where he had put his backpack and digging out the pair of sweatpants he'd packed to sleep in.

He tried to stay calm; Jean had _no idea_ that Marco wanted to do unspeakable things to his body, which was—Jesus—probably half naked right behind him, and he wasn't about to clue him in now. He didn't know what Jean was interested in—it wasn't ever something they'd talked about—but Marco was sure he wouldn't be Jean's type anyway. It was one thing to be cool with his bro-friend being a scarred-up amputee, but an entirely different thing if it was his boyfriend. Marco grimaced; the thought was enough to quell any residual blush staining his cheeks. He stripped out of his wet jeans methodically and pulled on his sweats, also unbuttoning his shirt, having mastered the art of one-handed buttons over the years. He dithered pulling the shirt off though, since he was only wearing a tank top. He took a breath in. Jean saw the scars on his face and neck all the time, the ones on his arm and shoulder were worse, though not as bad as the ones on his chest, but, still, he shouldn't be shocked. He slipped out of the shirt and hung them both over Connie's dresser to dry.

He didn't miss the way Jean's eyes went straight to his shoulders as soon as he turned around, but he smiled and chose to ignore it. “Okay, shall we?”

Jean snapped out of it. “Yeah.” He turned, and Marco silently despaired and celebrated that he had chosen to stay in his slim-fitting brown tee-shirt, which, wet, clung to his torso. It was going to be a long night.

He pulled out the whiskey and the coke and put everything on top of his dresser, then turned to Marco and said, “Drinking game to start off, yes/yes?”

 _Why not._ “Sure, got a deck of cards?”

“Uhh, no,” Jean said.

“Well then,” Marco said, hesitating. Did he want to throw all caution to the wind? Well, no one ever said he wasn't a good liar. “Could always play 'never have I.'”

He was silent for a moment, but then Jean replied, “Alright, let's do it.”

He pulled a sleeve of plastic cups out of his desk drawer and mixed them each a whiskey and coke (Marco couldn't help but note that he was generous with the whiskey) and handed one of the cups to him. Marco accepted it with trepidation—he was about 90 percent sure this was a terrible idea, but _he_ was also a college freshman who hadn't gotten to cut loose in months.

He took a sip of the drink to start off. Generous with the whiskey indeed. Oh well—it would taste better after a few.

“You want to start?” Marco asked.

“No, you start,” Jean said.

“Okay,” he replied, thinking for a second. “Never have I...been to a school dance.”

“Seriously?” Jean asked before taking a stout drink. “They were ultra lame anyway. Okay, let's see.” He paused for a long moment. “I've never had the flu.”

Marco silently took a drink, and thought of his next one. “I've never read Lord of the Rings.”

“Yeah, neither have I. I just saw the movies,” Jean admitted with a shrug. “I've never been to the ocean.”

“Me neither. My dad hates sand,” Marco said, and took a drink. This was going well so far. Unless Jean was just working up to the embarrassing questions.

But, as their game continued, and semi-devolved into just drinking and admitting things they'd never done to each other, it didn't get worse. And after a few drinks, Marco was feeling a lot more confident, especially as it turned out that Jean was a complete _lightweight,_ and that was just about the cutest thing ever.

“I've never kissed a girl,” Marco said, swirling the tiny amount of liquid left in his cup.

“Huh,” Jean said, “That honestly surprises me.” He took another drink, and Marco wondered if he should warn him to slow down. “Well,” he continued after a second, “I've never kissed a boy.”

Marco wondered if he should lie, but he was just tipsy enough that he didn't _care_ whether or not Jean knew right then. He finished his drink, and got up to mix himself another.

“Wait, what, you're not going to explain?”

“I was fourteen, and he never spoke to me again after the accident. There's not a lot to tell,” Marco said, unscrewing the cap to the whiskey.

“What a fucking dick—where does he live, I'll...Wait, are you gay?”

“That's not the game we're playing,” Marco teased gently, burst of confidence having since retreated. He made his drink strong. The bottle was more than half-empty.

“Fine, new game. Two truths and a lie. You start.”

“I started the last game,” Marco complained, sitting down again. Jean got up, and Marco was confused for a second, but he just moved to sprawl across his bed, the arm holding his drink hanging off the side.

“Fine. I'm awesome, you're awesome, and Jaeger's awesome. Which one's the lie?”

Marco sighed. “I'm going to have to go with you being awesome.”

“Wrong. Drink.” Jean's voice was muffled by the pillow.

Obligingly, Marco took a sip of his drink, _not_ staring at the curve of Jean's ass in his shorts.

“Well?” Jean demanded.

“Yes?” Marco replied, guiltily _not_ looking away from where he _wasn't_ checking his friend out.

“Are you gonna do the thing?”

“You're grumpy when you're drunk. Fine. I don't like pizza, I'm gay, and I used to take dance lessons when I was a kid.”

“You took dance lessons?” Jean said, curiously, turning his head to look at him.

“Wrong,” Marco replied with a smirk. “The lie was that I don't like pizza. Who doesn't like pizza? Your turn.”

He didn't mention the _other_ truth in his set, and he hoped that Jean was drunk enough to forget it as well, but he was out of luck there.

“So, wait, you _are_ gay?”

Marco took a bracing drink before answering. “Yeah.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” Marco repeated, uncomfortable despite the buzz he had going on.

“I'm not, you know, straight,” Jean said after a moment.

“What?” He questioned, startled.

Jean set his drink on the floor and rolled onto his back. “Yeah, I have no clue what I am. Some girls are hot; some aren't. Some guys are hot; some aren't. One time at my old job there was this person that came in every week and I still have no clue what they were or...how they identified, I guess, but god damn, they were hot. Is there a word for that?”

Marco took another drink. “I have no idea. Labels are all...arbitrary anyway.”

“Yeah. Oh, it's my turn, isn't it? Um, I hate cats, I bleach my hair, and I can cook pretty well.”

“You expect me to believe you can cook?” Marco muttered into his cup.

“I can! Wait, you think I bleach my hair? I swear it's natural!” Jean insisted.

“Between the trendy undercut, the really apparent two-tone hair, and the general hipster-ness thing you do, uh-huh, I'm sure it's natural. I believe you,” Marco mumbled in a tone that made it quite clear that he did not believe him. “On another note, I think we're both officially drunk now; wanna stop it with the drinking games?”

“Huh? Oh, sure. Movie?” Jean asked, already reaching for his laptop.

“'Kay,” Marco replied, getting up and refilling Jean's drink for him (with less alcohol than he would have made it with on his own).

When he was done, Jean had the laptop on his knees and was scooted against the wall on his bed.

“Alright, join me.” Words Marco would very much have liked to have heard under different circumstances. He was still reeling from the information that Jean _did_ occasionally like guys, but he would process it later. When he was sober.

Marco handed Jean his drink first before grabbing his own off the dresser, and gingerly settled on the bed next to his friend. The dorm beds were so small that there was literally no way to sit next to him without touching him.

Jean opened his folder of illegally downloaded movies and started naming them off. Marco cut him off halfway through and just told him to pick one.

He clicked open some sci-fi action movie that they wouldn't have to think too hard about and they watched it for approximately five minutes before Jean started a running commentary about the stupid decisions the characters were making.

Marco, leaning back against the headboard of Jean's bed, was content to listen, more often looking at the blearily frustrated expression on his face than the screen playing the movie.

“What are you looking at?” Jean asked him, in between curses at the main character.

“You always get this angry at movies?” Marco asked to cover his staring.

“Only when the characters are all fucking idiots.”

“Watching horror movies with you must be a blast,” he commented with what would have been a wry twist, had he been sober.

“Is that an invitation? Because I will totally have a horror movie marathon with you.”

Marco grinned—he wasn't much a fan of horror movies when he was taking them seriously, but it might be fun with Jean. “I might take you up on that.”

They went back to watching the laptop screen in friendly, inebriated silence again, until one of the side characters messed the plan up, and Jean was right back to yelling at him.

Their drinks were gone by the time the credits rolled, and Marco was more than half asleep, head barely held up.

The next thing he remembered was Jean elbowing him hard in the side.

“Marco! Wake up!”

“S'ry what?” he said, soggily waking up and lifting his head off Jean's shoulder.

“You can't sleep here; it's way too hot in this room,” Jean said in reply, clearly only about 20% more awake than Marco was.

“Are you kidding? It's freezing,” Marco said.

“You can have my blanket,” Jean said, and flailed across the room in the direction of Connie's bed, which was bare (Marco assumed he had taken his laundry home with him to wash).

“Mmkay,” Marco said, half-standing, half-sliding off the bed.

Jean performed several feats of acrobatics to pull his blanket out from under him without getting up and threw it in Marco's general direction. He bent to pick it up off the floor, head reeling when he straightened back up, and all-but fell onto Connie's bare mattress, dragging the blanket up after him and wrapping it around his body (it really _was_ freezing in the room, no matter what Jean said). Marco sighed when he realized what they had forgotten.

“Hey, Jean, you wanna turn the light off, or should I?”

Jean made several unhappy noises, and there may have been a few unintelligible curses in there too, but he got up, trudged to the door, flipped the switch, and stumbled back. Marco heard the _oof_ of a lanky nineteen-year-old flopping on a vinyl mattress, and smiled softly. He wrapped himself tightly in Jean's blanket, and _god,_ it smelled like him.

It was dark, so he risked holding it right up to his face and inhaling, and, wow, he was probably going to feel really weird about that in the morning. But for the moment, he was way too sleepy to think about that.

 

-

 

The blaring of Jean's ringtone woke him, and the first thing he was conscious of was the sensation of 14000 hammers pounding on his skull, and an intense nausea, which he quickly suppressed.

He groped for his phone without opening his eyes, answering it with a grunt.

“Hey, horseface,” said the voice he wanted to hear _least_ in the world when he was feeling this terrible.

“Jaeger?” Jean replied, “How did you get this number?”

“Armin gave it to me. I'm calling to invite Marco to lunch. Armin's making me invite you, too.”

Only his annoyance with Jaeger overwhelmed the nausea that surged up again at the mention of food.

“No, I'm hungover, go away,” Jean grumbled.

“Well, what about Marco?” Jaeger asked, relentless.

Jean whimpered almost-silently and opened one eye to look across the room, head pounding at the influx of light. Where there should have been a Marco there was only a human-shaped lump covered in Jean's blanket.

“I think he's still sleeping,” Jean answered.

“Yes, I'm still sleeping,” came the muffled echo from the blanket-covered lump.

“Yeah, still sleeping,” Jean confirmed. “Go _away.”_

Before he hung up, he heard Jaeger delightedly report to whoever he was with, “I think they're both _really_ hungover,” with a laugh, and then the line went dead. Jean let his hand go limp, the phone falling a few inches from his face.

Jean found he was in too much pain to go back to sleep.

After a moment, Marco asked, “What did they want?”

“It was Jaeger, inviting us to lunch,” Jean replied, an arm over his eyes.

“Oh, god, don't talk about food,” Marco said, contracting into a smaller lump.

“You're telling me,” Jean said, thinking of icebergs and pepto bismol.

When Marco spoke again, his voice was small and had a whimper to it. “Why didn't we drink any water last night?”

Jean didn't have a good reply, so he stayed silent. He planned to stay in bed for the foreseeable future, until he stopped feeling terrible.

Of course, that's when the Powers That Be decided that it was a good time for a fire drill, and alarms started blaring from all directions.

This was going to be an awful day.

 

-

 

All the midterms were finished the following week, and Jean's professors had given him a break on homework following the exams. He was sure that it was a conspiracy to slam him with assignments all due on the same day, but, for the time being, he had a while in which all his free time was his own. Right before spring break, too. Jean had no desire to go back to his mom's shithole of an apartment over the break, so he'd signed up to stay in his dorm for the break.

To his surprise, he'd discovered, so had Marco (and several of the other people they occasionally hung out with—but most importantly Marco). When he'd asked about it, Marco had awkwardly explained that Jinae was about a 10 hour drive from Trost and the university, and his family couldn't take off work to pick him up. He assured Jean it was no big deal, and he wasn't upset.

His last class on Friday was finishing up, and the students all throughout the lecture hall were packing their bags and the sound of shuffling papers, closing notebooks, and zippers nearly drowned out Professor Zacharius' voice as he dismissed them.

Jean left the lecture hall without saying goodbye to Sasha and Connie, who he'd been sitting with, preoccupied. He, as a general rule, didn't really _do_ feelings that weren't contempt, rage, or despair at human nature. Or, at least, he tried not to. But lately...Lately he'd felt a nervous excitement whenever he'd hung out with Marco. He refused to name the feeling, but, god fucking damn it, he knew what it was. He'd felt it before, the first time he'd seen Mikasa, and in the past, with others.

But when he'd meet up with Marco...spotting him across the quad, and waving hello, seeing his face light up in response, shifting his notebook to clamp it to his chest with his bad arm so that he could wave back... He'd never seen Marco as someone who was damaged, and needed to be helped, but he'd recently stopped even thinking of his scars as scars—they were just a part of him. He wouldn't be Marco without them.

And Jean _really liked_ Marco.

He'd sort of realized it weeks ago, but it really came to fruition the night Marco had stayed in his room and they'd gotten drunk (though he preferred not to think of the day after). He'd really gotten past Jean's defenses, and he couldn't even find it in him to be upset about that. Jean had been so fucking _lonely_ before.

He grimaced, walking down the quad toward his dorm. Jean was aware of his weaknesses, and he knew that he was terrible at hiding what he was thinking, and at lying.

 _Why_ did he have to feel this way? He clenched his teeth, and an unknown girl passing in the opposite direction gave him a concerned look.

Well, there was only one thing to do, if he wanted to get out of this without going prematurely gray from stress. He unclenched his jaw and sighed. He'd have to tell Marco. It would go one of three ways, from what Jean could see. Marco would be weirded out and stop talking to him, or they'd become awkward and slowly grow apart. And then there was the third, slight possibility, and Marco might, possibly, be willing to give Jean a shot—as more than a friend. He totally did _not_ blush at the thought.

He opened the front door to his dorm. At least he had all of spring break to work up to it.

 

-

 

Jean had been acting weird since spring break started, Marco thought with a frown. He'd been kind of flushed and distracted, but he'd sworn he wasn't running a fever or anything. His normally loud, brash personality had been toned down into something almost shy, or depressed, like he was never sure what to say, which, again, made Marco concerned that he was sick.

It was Wednesday, the exact middle of the break, and he was walking over to the campus store to get something to drink when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He dug it out and unlocked the screen.

From: Jean Kirschstein

Hey, I need to talk to you. Do you have time to meet me?

A jolt of panic ran through Marco, at the meaning, the polite phrasing, and the fact that he'd bothered to use correct grammar and punctuation, which _literally never happened._ What was going on? Had he figured out that Marco had totally inappropriate crush on him and wanted to stop hanging out? Was that why he had been acting so...off?

He tried not to overreact. It _could_ be nothing. Fingers shaking, he wrote a reply.

To: Jean Kirschstein

I'm free right now. What's up?

Marco wasn't sure what to do while Jean texted back, if he should go on to the store or what, but the reply came so quickly he hadn't had time to make up his mind.

From: Jean Kirschstein

Can you meet me in my dorm room?

An eruption of terrified butterflies started dancing in his gut, and he replied with a simple affirmative before pulling a 180 and going back the way he came, not even realizing he'd been standing still in the middle of the quad.

Terrified of what was about to transpire, but not wanting to stretch out the anticipation, he walked quickly, dread souring his stomach.

Too soon, he reached the front door of the dorm, and opened it, receiving a short wave from Petra, the RA on duty at the front desk, who recognized him by that point. He waved back shyly, distractedly, and walked down the hall to Jean's room.

He dithered by the door, shifting from one foot to the other, waiting for a good minute or two before finally taking a deep breath and knocking sharply.

It opened so quickly he wondered if he hadn't been waiting on the other side.

“Marco!” Jean said, looking as nervous as he felt.

“Hey,” he replied softly, summoning up a grin. “Can I come in?”

“Oh,” Jean said, _blushing again,_ and he moved out of the door frame so that Marco could move into the room. Connie had gone home for the break, so he went ahead and sat at his desk again.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Marco said with trepidation after Jean hadn't said anything for a while.

“I—yeah,” Jean said, looking down. He was perched on the edge of his bed, and his hands were clenched tightly in the fabric of his jeans. “I just—fuck, I don't know how to say this.” Marco waited, more tense than he'd ever been in his entire life. Finally, Jean went on. “I really fucking like you, okay? And I'm sorry, but I can't keep it to myself, and I--”

Marco cut him off. “What?” He refused to believe what he'd heard until he got clarification.

Jean was bright red, but he took a breath. “I _like_ you, and I want to go on stupid dates with you and kiss your dumb freckled face and, come on, Marco, give me some reaction, here,” he finished, pleading by the end.

There was a minor blue screen of death going on in Marco's head while his brain caught up with everything Jean had said. He was too overwhelmed to even be happy. He opened his mouth to say something, not sure what was going to come out, but a moment of crippling doubt decided for him.

“Even with...?” and he lifted his good hand to cover the right side of his face self-consciously, looking at the floor.

He heard Jean stand up. “Hey, hey, I thought you said you were over that?”

Marco's laugh was bitter. “It's one thing to be over it, and completely another to know that no one's ever likely to find you attractive because--”

“The only kind of person who would think that would be a real asshole—well, a lot more of an asshole than I am, for sure,” he said, awkward. He looked up, and Jean was blushing harder than he'd ever seen, and, damn, it was cute, and, wow, he really actually _liked him back._

When Jean's hand came to take Marco's from his face, he didn't resist, nor when Jean twined their fingers together, and leaned forward to press a soft kiss to Marco's knuckles.

He did, however, finally manage to say, “Hey, Jean? I like you too.”

“Oh, thank god,” Jean breathed, releasing Marco's hand. He looked like he was about to pass out or cry or something. “I was so sure this was a terrible idea.”

He took a step backwards, and Marco stood up, unthinkingly.

“Hey, can I...?” Jean asked, trailing off.

Marco didn't even bother to find out what the end of that question was, murmuring, “yes.”

Jean swallowed visibly and closed the distance between them, hesitating at the last moment, so close that Marco could feel his breath on his skin, and made him be the one to move in the final inch, pressing their lips together. It was a soft, closemouthed kiss, the both of them nervous and giddy with excitement because _this was happening._

When they broke apart s few seconds later, Jean echoed Marco's thoughts, mumbling, “This is happening,” as if to himself. Marco couldn't help but laugh softly.

This time, Jean didn't hesitate, leaning forward and up almost aggressively, kissing him hard. He wrapped one arm around Marco's chest, pulling him, close, and threaded the other in his hair, tilting his face down so he could get a better angle. Marco's thought that he'd never really noticed how much taller he was than Jean, but now that he did, he kind of liked it. Then he put his good arm around Jean's waist and pretty much only thought ' _I'm kissing him'_ after that.

When they finally did break apart for air, the dazed look in Jean's light, honey-brown eyes was one of the most gorgeous things Marco has ever seen, and when his face broke into a smile, a real smile, not a grimace or his sardonic side-smirk, Marco moved that image straight to the top of the list.

“You're adorable,” he said to Jean, who blushed furiously and clammed up.

They were quiet for a moment, still holding each other loosely, unsure what to say, wanting to figure everything out, but not wanting to take away the moment.

However, it didn't matter, because seconds later, Jean's stomach gave the loudest rumble Marco had ever heard, and his blush intensified as Marco couldn't stifle a laugh.

“I haven't eaten all day!” Jean defended himself, stepping back and turning slightly away. “I was really nervous, okay?”

Trying to swallow his laughter to save Jean's pride, Marco said, “Okay, do you want to go grab an early dinner? It seems like we have a lot to talk about, anyway.”

“Yeah, that...let's do that,” Jean said.

 

-

 

Breath was stolen in short gasps, lips sliding wetly, teeth scraping and nipping, tongues swirling and delving. They were in Jean's room, in his bed, and Jean was half on top of Marco, kissing him soundly, thrills running down his spine at every sensation.

It had started out at a movie—really—Marco had never seen _Ghostbusters_ and Jean just wasn't going to let that go. But about an hour in, it was apparent that they were really a lot more interested in each other than the film, and Jean's laptop had been moved to a safer spot on the floor.

Uncomfortable in his position, Jean shifted, pulling himself more fully onto Marco, slotting their legs together, his slighter frame fitting comfortably atop his boyfriend's broader one. But then Marco's thigh rubbed right up against Jean's cock, sending a fresh wave of heat through him, and this was either the worst idea or the best idea in the world.

Jean pressed his lips briefly to Marco's temple before gently taking his earlobe between his teeth and flicking his tongue against it, reveling in the tiny sound Marco made, while trying not to grind against his leg like a horny teenager—even though he was, technically, a horny teenager. Marco moved his leg, and Jean had to suppress a noise of his own. Emphasis on _horny._

He moved his mouth to the side of Marco's neck, scraping his teeth on the skin, trailing his tongue on the sensitized flesh. And all the time, that damn leg of his kept moving against him, making it harder and harder, pun intended, for him to keep his cool. Finally, it clicked.

He pulled his head back, and growled, “You're doing that on purpose.”

“Doing what on purpose?” Marco replied, but he was grinning mischievously.

“You know what you're doing,” Jean said, and when Marco's grin turned into a smirk, his leg moving between Jean's again, he went on, “Yeah, that.”

“Hm,” Marco said, not stopping, and Jean was about 90% sure he didn't want him to, “Guilty as charged.” Jean rolled his eyes, and moved back in to kiss Marco.

Exactly 2.5 seconds later, the door to the room burst open dramatically.

“Jean! Guess who's back a day early!”

Jean detached from Marco and set upon Connie with a look that was equal parts death glare and utter mortification.

“Uhh—this is new,” Connie said.

“I should go,” Marco said, pushing gently at Jean.

“No, you can stay. He can go,” Jean replied to Marco, glaring at Connie again.

“He _does_ live here,” Marco reminded Jean, who grumbled and finally moved off of Marco.

“I...can...go, though,” Connie offered awkwardly.

“No, it's okay. I'm—uh, I'm leaving. I'll see you later, Jean?” Marco said.

“Yeah,” Jean said with a nod, quite put out at this turn of events.

Marco grabbed his room key and wallet from Jean's desk and didn't run—but he did walk briskly—from the room.

Jean sat in silence while Connie pulled his suitcase into the room, and then they were both quiet for a long moment.

“So,” Connie said at length, “You and Marco.”

“I don't want to talk about this with you,” Jean replied immediately.

“And I never wanted to see you with a boner, but we can't always get what we want,” Connie sassed, and Jean could feel his face heat up, going bright red.

“Then you shouldn't have walked in when you did.” He turned his face, petulant.

“How was I supposed to know? As far as I knew, you were just BFFs—oh, god, I said BFFs again. Anyway, how long has this even been going on?”

“Uh, about four days,” Jean answered, glancing over at his roommate, who had his cell phone out. “Whoa, hey, who are you texting?”

“Sasha. You expect me to keep quiet about this?” Connie said with a grin, kicking off his shoes. “And, sent.”

“I hate you so much.” Jean and Marco weren't trying to hide their relationship, but he, at least, would have liked a little more time to figure it out before they went announcing it to everyone they knew.

“Remember that time you blackmailed me to get my Netflix password? Consider this payback. Anyway, I want the story,” Connie said gleefully.

Jean sighed. “There's not a lot to tell? Marco and I like each other as more than friends and now we're dating; can you drop it?”

Suddenly serious, Connie asked, “So you're not, you know, pity-dating him? Because that would be a really shitty—“

“Conrad Elizabeth Springer, are you sure you want to finish that sentence?” Jean asked, voice low and dangerous.

“Actually, no. I'm very happy for you both. Please do the sock on the door thing.” And he fled the room, leaving his suitcase still packed and his shoes on the floor by his bed. Jean was actually shaking with anger at the accusation—first, that Marco was someone who wasn't absolutely wonderful in every way, and fuck having a few scars and maybe a missing limb, he was cute as hell, and second at the insinuation that _Jean_ was shallow enough to not be able to look past a less-than-perfect physical appearance.

Jean forcibly relaxed his jaw, which had been clenched, and went to check his phone. Unexpectedly, he had several unread messages.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Sorry for running out on you like that! I was really embarrassed.

Jean grinned, and made a note to reply after he checked the other messages.

From: Unknown Number

god damn it now I owe armin $10

From: Armin Arlert

Haha! Now Eren owes me $10!

Jean frowned loudly and made a note to make sure Jaeger lost his number this time.

From: Unknown Number

get some!!! -reiner

From: Unknown Number

I tried to keep him from sending that. -Bertl

From: Christa Lenz

I'm really happy for you!! I've always thought you were cute together.

Jean didn't reply to anything yet, just locking the phone and flopping back on his bed. “It has literally been ten minutes,” he said to himself, putting his hands over his face. How did those people even get his number?

He had a feeling that the next week was going to be a very, very long one.

 

-

 

Marco opened the door from the biology building and happened to see Christa, Ymir, Bertholdt, and Reiner.

Reiner spotted him at about the same instant and waved him over. Marco didn't have anywhere to be, so he joined them without hesitation.

“Hey, we were on our way to get some lunch, want to join?” he asked.

“I'm up for it,” Marco replied with a smile. He wasn't very hungry, but it was better than sitting in his room by himself until his next class. He fell into step with the group.

“You sure you don't have any plans?” The suggestive voice was Ymir's. “You know, with your new boyfriend?”

“Don't tease him!” Christa said in Marco's defense, but he put up his hand to say it was okay.

“Where is your other half, anyway?” Ymir asked with a smirk.

“I lost it in a car accident,” Marco replied, all smiles. He'd been planning that one for days.

Everyone else visibly tensed up, but Ymir barked out a laugh and thrust her messenger bag into Reiner's hands so that she could aggressively high-five Marco.

He grinned widely, thrilled that his joke had gone over well with at least  _one_ of them. Meanwhile, Ymir looked around at the others, and frowned. "Come on guys, that was hilarious." She took her bag back from Reiner, who had been holding is uncomfortably during the exchange, and turned back to Marco. "Seriously, though, I  _did_ mean Jean."

“I figured," he replied, still smiling, and went on, “I'm not sure where he is. I think he had a meeting?” He shrugged.

“On a related note,” Berthold said, entering the conversation for the first time. He fell back to stand beside Marco and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. “If you ever need me to stay out of the room for a while, just say the word.”

“Uh, thanks,” Marco said, blushing because he _knew_ he was going to have to take him up on that—especially the way things had been going with Jean lately. Which was to say, well, but frustratingly. Sexually.

“Our little Marco, finally growing up and getting laid,” Reiner said with mock drama.

“I am older than all of you,” he protested, blushing harder, though it wasn't apparent on his olive skin.

“Guys, stop, you're embarrassing him,” Christa said sweetly, but firmly, and Reiner immediately put his hands up in a placating gesture.

“We're here, anyway,” Reiner said, as the dining hall came into view around the corner, and finally allowed the subject to change—Christa asking if they had seen that video of the cat and the vacuum cleaner that had been gone viral, which actually got Bertholdt excited, and they happily discussed it as their respective significant others looked on in confusion.

Right before they reached the door, Marco felt his pocket buzz. He took out his phone and checked his messages.

From: Jean Kirschstein

fucking hell that meeting took forever. Anyway what r u up to?

He typed a reply after handing the dining hall employee his student ID to be let in.

To: Jean Kirschstein

Getting lunch with Bertl, Reiner, Christa, and Ymir. Want to join?

He got in line with Bertholdt for some food. His phone buzzed.

From: Jean Kirschstein

I cant :/ class in 20. want to hang out later tho?

Marco's mind flashed back to Bertholdt's offer, and his stomach fluttered.

He quickly typed a reply while the line moved.

To: Jean Kirschstein

Definitely. Text me when you're out of class!

He got his food, but he barely tasted it, a nervous excitement twisting his stomach and making him distracted. He thought he might have agreed to dragging Jean on a triple date with all of them at some point, which he knew Jean probably would never go along with.

And he enjoyed his lunch, and the company of his friends—he really did, but he was anxious for Jean's class to end.

 

-

 

Jean met Marco after lecture, backpack still full of textbooks and notes. His knock on the door startled Marco out of a doze; he had been taking a nap after getting back to his room from lunch.

He got out of bed and went to open the door, still blinking the grit from his eyes.

“You weren't answering my texts—Did I wake you up?” Jean asked, entering the room and setting his backpack down beside Marco's desk.

“Just a little bit,” Marco said unintelligibly around a yawn, scrubbing his hand over his face.

“Sorry,” Jean muttered with a blush.

“You're blushing,” Marco commented, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Jean said something that sounded like, “You'rereallycutewhenyou'resleepy,” and sat beside him.

“Sorry, I didn't catch that?”

“You heard me,” he grumbled, and covered up his embarrassment by pressing a short greeting kiss into Marco's lips. Marco felt his own face heat up, because of the compliment, and mostly, because Jean actually _meant_ it.

Spontaneously, Jean let out a huge breath and launched into a story. “Okay so there's this guy in my history lecture who is one of those that always needs to question everything Professor Zacharius says and I swear to god he's almost as annoying as Jaeger—speaking of which, have you done the thing I asked you, yet?”

“What thing?” Marco asked, having actually forgotten.

“Stolen his phone and deleted my number from it. I don't want him to be able to contact me,” Jean said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You were serious about that? You know he can get your number from literally anyone else in this set of rooms, right?”

“But _you_ wouldn't do that to me, would you, Marco?”

“No promises. Anyway, what was that about the guy in your history lecture?”

“Oh yeah! Fuck, it was the worst...” And Jean ranted for a good five minutes about the things that guy had said, Marco taking the time to finish waking up while he listened in silent amusement.

When he finally wound down, Marco could only smile, and say, “And _you're_ really cute when you're angry.”

Jean's face went bright red (really, he blushed so easily!), and Marco added, “Also when you're embarrassed.”

“ _Stop,”_ Jean requested, covering his face with his hands and then brushing them back through his hair, messing up the long part and making it stand up in fluffy tufts. Marco reached up and smoothed them back down.

“Anyway,” Jean said, putting emphasis on the word, “What did you want to do tonight?”

 _You._ “Uh, I didn't really have anything in mind.” _Not even remotely true._ Why was he too embarrassed to just come out and say, 'Hey, Jean, do you wanna have sex?' He'd have to imply it until Jean got the idea. Knowing Jean, that could take...a while.

“Oh, well, I got food on the way here but we could go get coffee or something?”

Marco sighed. He was too sexually frustrated for subtlety, on second thought. “I had...other ideas.”

“Oh? Such as?” Jean asked, and Marco leveled him with a stare until his eyes widened with realization. “ _Oh._ Oh!”

“So is that a yes?” he asked nervously.

“Marco, I am nineteen years old, I have never had sex, and before you no one ever kissed me unless it was during a game of spin the bottle. What do you think my answer is going to be?”

“So that's a yes,” he half-guessed, hopefully.

“It's a hell yes.”

“Hold on a second—I have to send a text.” Marco pulled out his phone, not missing the look of confusion that crossed Jean's face at the non-sequiter.

He talked while he typed. “You know, if it helps, I'm twenty-one, I've also never had sex, and no one before you even looked at me and saw what I am—they only saw what I'm not. So, um, yeah.”

He had just managed to hit send when he trailed off, and his face was forcibly turned toward Jean's, his boyfriend pulling them together into a hard kiss.

“Marco, you are great and I will punch anyone who says differently in the throat.” Jean said lowly when he pulled away. Marco laughed softly, but was distracted from replying when his phone buzzed.

To: Bertholdt Hoover

Hey, remember that offer you made me earlier?

From: Bertholdt Hoover

About borrowing my graphing calculator?

“Who are you even texting?” Jean asked, increasingly confused and concerned.

“My mom. She made me promise to tell her if I ever got laid.”

“You're joking, right?”

“Yes, I am. I'm asking Bertl if he can...not...be here for a while.”

“ _Oh._ ”

To: Bertholdt Hoover

Uh, no. The other one.

The reply came quickly.

From: Bertholdt Hoover

Oh, yeah, no problem. I was gonna be out for most of the night anyway. Shoot me a text when it's safe to come back.

A second later, he got another text. It only contained one thing.

From: Reiner Braun

;)

A second after that, he got one more.

From: Annie Leonhardt

Use protection.

Red-faced, he showed the texts to Jean, who muttered, “I _swear_ those three are in some sort of polyamory thing.”

He set his phone over on the dresser and, suddenly unsure, turned to Jean.

“So, um, did you want to do this now?” Jean asked, and Marco shrugged and nodded shyly. Jean took a breath and started and kissing Marco, one of his hands coming up to rest on the side of Marco's face—the bad side; not the unscarred side. Marco had noticed that Jean showed no disgust at his scars, or any reluctance to touch them, and it just made him fall a little harder.

There was no rush, no urgency to their kissing, taking the time to learn the shapes of one anothers' mouths again and again. Marco shifted, closer to Jean so he had to tilt his face up, and the kiss deepened, Jean's hand dropping from his face to run across his chest, down his side, and to settle on his hip, fingertips brushing a line of skin where Marco's shirt had ridden up.

Marco went to brush his lips against Jean's jawline, and he felt a fist in his shirt, pulling him forward, over Jean, and he didn't manage to catch himself in time, falling onto his chest with his full weight.

“ _Oof,_ ” Jean said.

“Sorry, let me just get...situated,” Marco said as he moved, propping himself up with his good arm, bent and resting on the pillow right above Jean's head.

But Jean was under him, and, wow, Marco really liked the sight of his boyfriend in his bed, so Marco ducked his head to kiss that perpetually grumpy look off his face. And there was nothing tentative or hesitant about this. The room seemed to get about twenty degrees hotter, and Marco's breath was coming fast, when he found the time to breathe in between the slide of lips and tongues. He took Jean's lower lip between his teeth and sucked on it, letting it go slowly, teeth scraping across the sensitive skin. Jean did that thing he did where he was obviously trying to suppress some noise.

Jean's fingers, previously on his shoulders, slid down, firmly grasping Marco's ass in both hands, causing his eyes to shoot open, a noise of surprise jumping up from his throat. Jean's eyes were open too, and he smirked. He pulled Marco's hips down, fitting between his thighs.

“Mm,” Marco said, suddenly aware of how many layers of fabric there were between them, and kind of hating it. Still, he thought, closing his eyes, there would be time for that. He put his teeth gently on the pulse of Jean's throat, wetting the spot with his tongue before moving over to the side of his neck. Jean turned his head to give him better access and Marco could feel his hips rock up where they were trapped under his own.

Still kissing Jean's neck, he experimentally ground down against him, and, yeah, way too many layers of clothing. He was already hard in his shorts, and he was about 98% sure Jean was in the same state, rocking against him and panting with airy whimpers interspersed.

His voice startled Marco, deeper than usual. “Hey, Marco,” Jean said.

“Hm?” He intoned against Jean's throat. After a second of silence, he pulled himself up to look at his boyfriend, and his eyes were open, dark, the honey-brown darkened into the color of polished oak.

“I want to do something,” he said, eyes going to the side.

“I think we are doing something,” Marco replied in confusion.

“No, I—Can I touch you?” he asked.

Marco's mind went blank, and he lost the ability to say words, but he did manage to get out a small, “Uh-huh.”

“Okay, um, can we...flip over?” Jean asked, and Marco's mind started working again, the two of them working to get situated in the tiny bed. Finally, he was lying back and Jean was straddling his hips, and, yeah, that was _also_ something he could get used to.

“First of all,” Jean said, taking off his shirt methodically. Yeah. Could definitely get used to this. “It is about a million degrees in here.”

“Secondly,” Jean began, but he just leaned forward and aggressively kissed Marco, holding himself up with one arm while he used his other hand to tease Marco. His fingertips brushed over one of his nipples and Marco gasped at the contact. He could feel Jean smirk into the kiss, so he just used his hand to tangle in his boyfriend's hair and remind him that he did not need his sass.

After what seemed an eternity, Jean's hand got to the button of Marco's shorts and he had to struggle with is for a while before he could get it open. It was Marco's turn to smirk, but it turned into a gasp of relief when Jean unzipped his fly, relieving the pressure on his cock.

He stopped breathing when Jean's hand went into his shorts, brushing his inner thighs before feeling his dick, Marco's boxers between them. Jean was taking his sweet time, like he was trying to get used to the size and shape of someone else's cock in his hand, but Marco would really just have liked him to get on with it. He pulled his hand out, and then went back in, this time under the waistband of Marco's boxers, and he let out a groan at the contact as Jean's hand wrapped around him.

At that very instant, the bathroom door connecting his room to Eren and Armin's opened, and Eren stuck his head in the room.

“Hey, can I borrow your—“

Marco froze in mortification, but Jean slowly turned his head to look at the unwanted visitor. Marco could barely see his face, but from what he saw, it was the most terrifying and murderous smile Jean could possibly make.

“What is it, Eren?” he asked dangerously.

“Ahh—you know what, nevermind.” His voice came out high-pitched. Eren quickly closed the door back and Marco could hear his footsteps as he all-but-ran back to his own room.

Jean, bravado gone, buried his face in Marco's shoulder and muttered something about hating dorms.

Marco had bigger concerns. Like the fact that Jean's hand was still on his dick. He waited a second. Nothing happened. Finally, Marco just asked, “Hey, Jean?”

“Yes?” the words were muffled by the pillow and Marco's neck.

“Were you going to do something with that?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, bringing his head back up and looking Marco in the eye as he gave his cock an experimental pump. Gaining confidence from the way his eyes went half-lidded and his breath started coming harder at the sensation, Jean went on.

“Actually, though, this wasn't what I wanted to do,” he murmured.

“Wha?” Marco said, not quite capable of normal human thought processes.

Jean's hand stilled and Marco bit back a groan of regret. “IwasthinkingIcouldsuckyouoff,” Jean said, all in a rush, not looking him in the eye.

“Uhh,” Marco replied, every cell in his body screaming _yes, go for it!_ “You don't have to do that,” he said instead.

“Is that a no?” Jean asked, sounding embarrassed and uncomfortable.

“No!” Marco half-shouted. “I just don't want you to feel pressured.”

“I offered, idiot,” Jean reminded him.

“Then yes,” Marco said, trying not to whimper, adding, “please.”

Jean's weight was abruptly off of him, shifting down on the bed. He tugged at the belt loops of Marco's shorts, and he obligingly lifted his hips, happy to let his boyfriend do all the work.

“Off?” Jean asked.

“Mm, whatever you want,” Marco replied, and Jean went ahead and pulled his shorts and boxers down past his knees, and Marco kicked them off the rest of the way, feeling vulnerable at the exposure, but also excited.

“You have freckles literally everywhere,” Jean commented, and Marco had a retort, but it died on his lips the second Jean's tongue touched his cock, licking a stripe up to the head.

“Oh _god,_ ” Marco said, Jean's mouth enveloping him in exquisite wet heat, flicking his tongue against the tip. His world shrank to the sensation of Jean's tongue and lips on his cock, not even trying to silence the whimpers that rose from his throat. He threw his arm over his face and shut his eyes tightly.

His hips bucked up involuntarily, and he heard a choking sound from Jean.

“God, sorry,” he muttered. Jean patted him on the hip and used his arm to keep him pressed to the mattress. He wrapped his hand around the base of Marco's dick, and moved his fingers in time with his mouth.

Objectively, he knew it couldn't be the best blowjob ever, but Marco had nothing to compare it to and he was pretty much in heaven. In a embarrassingly short time, he knew he was close. He opened his mouth—warning Jean would be the polite thing to do.

“Jean, I'm gonna,” he panted, and Jean, after a split-second's hesitation, pulled his mouth away, wiping it with one hand, and Marco's whine of disappointment turned into one of pleasure when Jean started stroking him firmly with the other, and it was enough to send him over the edge, coming harder than he ever had in his life, waves of bliss running through him.

A few seconds later, when he could think again, he noticed that wetness was seeping through the fabric of his tee shirt, and he looked down to see stripes of semen across it. He sighed.

“Damn it,” he muttered, unthinkingly sitting up and taking the shirt off. He looked over, and Jean's eyes were on his chest, where his scars were the worst, twisting and pitted, the flesh reddish, unlike the more subtle ones on his face and neck, which had faded with the years.

Surprisingly, he wasn't uncomfortable with Jean's scrutiny. If anyone in the world wasn't going to judge him at this point, he trusted it to be Jean. It helped that he had a boner and it hadn't gone away at the sight of Marco's scars. Jean's eyes snapped back up to Marco's face.

“Was that okay?”

“That,” Marco replied, “was great.” He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at the bulge in Jean's stupidly-a-size-too-small pants. “Anyway,” he continued, “you want me to do something about that?”

“God yes,” Jean said, releasing a held breath. As a mumbled aside, he added, “It's not going to take long.” He stood up and stripped his pants and boxers off efficiently, his cock bobbing up toward his stomach. Marco took a long moment to look over his boyfriend's naked body, wondering if Marco from a month ago would believe him if he were to go back in time and tell him that this was going to happen.

Marco rolled onto his right side and moved back against the wall, gesturing to Jean to join him, and he did, spooning against him, his smaller form fitting against Marco's broader one beautifully. He reached his arm over Jean's body to grasp his erection loosely, kissing along Jean's neck where is was exposed. Jean's breathing was coming fast, profanities falling from his lips as Marco jerked him off with a quick, loose fist.

As promised, it didn't take long, Jean blurting out, “Jesus _fuck_ , Marco!” and coming all over his hand. The sight was enough to make Marco's dick twitch with interest again, even though he'd had an orgasm less than ten minutes previously.

Marco's dirty shirt was still within reach and it was pretty much a lost cause, so he wiped his hand on it and tossed it to the floor, leaning over Jean to kiss him lazily, affectionately, no heat to it.

When Marco pulled away for a breath, Jean said, “Naptime.”

And sleepy warmth and well-being was still flowing through him, too, so he nodded assent, and pulled the sheet over their bodies, wrapping his arm around Jean's chest, his forehead pressed into his hair.

-

 

The rest of the semester passed in a haze of homework and tests and dumb shenanigans with everyone from the group, kisses and sex and quiet nights together.

But now, finals were over, and the dorms were starting to clear out for the summer. Jean was packing up his meager belongings into a cardboard box, just a few textbooks, his clothes, and some knick-knacks. He smiled when he folded a scarf that Marco had gotten him for his birthday, to 'complete his hipster look.'

There was a knock on his door, and, speak of the devil, there he was. Jean opened the door to let Marco in, saying, “Hey.”

“You going home today?” Marco asked in lieu of a greeting.

“I have to; the dorm closes tonight,” Jean replied, voice tinged with regret. Marco was his boyfriend, yeah, but he was also the best friend he'd ever had, and he wasn't looking forward to three months of him being ten hours away.

“Yeah, me too. My mom's supposed to be here to pick me up in about an hour,” Marco replied, with the same resigned melancholy. They'd known that this was going to happen, but facing the separation head-on was more painful than Jean had expected it to be. He stopped packing and stood up.

He wrapped his arms tightly around Marco and whispered fiercely, “I'm going to miss you so much.” Marco held him back, nodding against his shoulder.

“My parents are totally okay with you visiting us over the summer,” Marco said. Jean looked at him; they'd never discussed that before, “If that's something you'd be interested in.”

“Um, yes?” Jean said like it was obvious—and it really should have been.

Marco stayed in Jean's room until his phone rang, his mom reporting that she was in Trost and about ten minutes from the university.

“Well,” he said with a sense of finality, “I'd better go.” But Jean swept him up in a kiss that—if his intentions translated into actions—made damn sure that Marco wouldn't forget him over the summer.

When they broke apart, Jean blurted out, “I love you,” and blushed bright red because he _hadn't been intending to say that._ Not yet.

But Marco just smiled, and gave Jean a much softer kiss. “I love you, too, Jean. Call me and stuff?”

“Um, duh,” Jean said, because, again, it really should have been obvious.

And when Marco left the room he wasn't upset—he was twenty and in love, and three months wasn't _really_ that long, especially if he did get to visit Marco during that time.

Jean threw the last couple of things into his box, looking around his shitty dorm room one last time.

As much as he liked to complain, Jean's life could be going a whole lot worse.


	2. When The Cataract Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean goes to visit Marco during summer vacation. The moral of the story is family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta for this part was cloudmonstachopper.tumblr.com, I owe her a lot!!
> 
> Chapter title is another line from Mountain Laurel by Shearwater ~~seriously it's the perfect jeanmarco song~~

 

It was a shitty, run-down coffee shop in a shitty, run-down part of Trost. But it paid slightly above minimum wage and Jean would take what he could get. Two o'clock in the afternoon wasn't their busiest time, so Jean entertained himself by wiping down the tables, which were eternally sticky since they hadn't been replaced since mankind had discovered fire.

Jean sighed. He didn't hate his job. It was pretty easy, it was within walking distance of his mom's apartment, and his manager was surprisingly reasonable. His coworkers were less annoying than Jaeger, not that anything to the contrary was possible. Anyway, he was doing okay.

Except. This day. This was to be his last day before he took two weeks off. His manager hadn't been thrilled,but he'd asked for it almost as soon as he'd been hired, and his coworker, Hitch, was begging for more hours anyway.

The point was, it was hard to take the shitty coffee shop seriously when he was getting on a train in the morning to go see Marco in Jinae.

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and he grinned, taking his cleaning rag over to a dirty table and setting it down before allowing himself to check the message.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Hey, are you working right now?

Since his manager was usually pretty strict on employees not texting at work, he quickly wiped the table off before replying, even though he was the only one at the shop until four.

To: Marco PoloBodt

sure am

He pocketed his phone again and went to clean the last remaining table in the cafe, wiping it a bit more carefully than he had the last. His phone buzzed again. He dropped the rag and checked his text.

From: Marco PoloBodt

And what time do you get off?

Jean smirked and leaned against the table before replying.

To: Marco PoloBodt

hopefully sometime tomorrow. If u meant off work then 6.

He frowned, and realized that it was kind of a suspicious question, given that Marco was ten hours away and it didn't really matter what time Jean got off work.

He quickly typed another message.

To: Marco PoloBodt

why do u ask?

He went back behind the counter and got a fresh rag, planning to clean the blender and the espresso machine until a customer came in or he found something better to do.

His phone vibrated before he had a chance to get started, though.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Jean!! My mom has been reading over my shoulder this whole time!

He had just enough time to blush furiously before the second message popped up.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Also. No reason.

Jean was too embarrassed to focus on how _incredibly suspicious_ this was, and pocketed his phone quickly, cleaning with a vengeance.

At last, he was done. He took the rag back dropped the rag back into the bucket of cleaning solution with a dramatic _plop._ That was it. There was _nothing left to clean._ Inventory had been taken, everything was fully stocked, and he still had three and a half hours left in his shift. With a grumble and a sigh, he put his head down on the counter, only to have to pop back up half a minute later when he heard the door open.

“Hi, welcome to Cool Beans, how can I help you?” he said with forced cheer. By this point he was a _champ_ at not rolling his eyes every time he had to say the name of the cafe. At least on the outside.

It was a guy who lived in the area and came in a few times a week. He ordered a drip coffee to go. He almost sighed at how easy an order it was. There wouldn't even be anything for him to _clean_ afterward. The guy paid and left, and Jean settled in for hours of monotony, rejoicing when his manager showed up for her shift thirty minutes early, just so he'd have someone to talk to.

“Has it been slow?” she asked, clocking in.

Jean dramatically slumped against the counter and gestured around the cafe.

She followed his gesture. “Oh, wow,” she commented. “It is...very clean.”

“I mopped _twice_ ,” Jean said by way of response.

“If it doesn't pick up, I may let you go home early,” his managed said, brewing herself some fancy caramel drink, and Jean was honestly pretty neutral about it. He was either going to be bored at work or bored at his mom's shitty apartment. It was about the same to him.

They had one customer come in in the next thirty minutes, and Jean took care of her order while his manager took care of ordering supplies they were low on. It was around 4:15 that Jean's day really picked up.

He was cleaning the espresso machine (again) when the door opened for the whole fifth time since he'd come in for his shift.

His manager was at the counter, since Jean was currently _very_ engrossed in scrubbing out _every_ crevasse of that machine.

“Hi there!” She greeted the customer, “Welcome to Cool Beans! What can I get for you?”

“I'm actually here to pick up one grumpy 20-year-old, answers to 'Jean Kirschstein,' if you're willing to let him go.”

That voice. Jean stood up so fast he hit his head on the machine he had been trying to clean.

“Marco?!” He exclaimed, frozen in confusion and general amazement.

Marco smiled at him, and it was beautiful, and Jean wished there wasn't a counter between them.

His manager, looking back and forth between them, raised an eyebrow at Jean and asked, “This your boo?”

“Not the term I would have used,” Jean muttered, while Marco turned to her and said, “Hi! I'm Marco; it's nice to meet you.” He extended his arm, and there was a moment where Jean's manager instinctively put out her right arm, switching quickly to her left. Marco smiled again and shook her hand.

“So, Yvonne,” Jean said, “You know how you were threatening to let me go early.”

“Offering,” she cut in.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jean said, rolling his eyes, “Anyway, I doubt it's gonna get any busier; can I clock out early?”

She raised one dark eyebrow at him and he sighed. “Please?”

She added her other eyebrow.

Jean, reluctantly, added, “ _Ma'am_.”

His manager smiled and shooed him toward the computer, where he set a new speed record for clocking himself out, and ran around the counter to where Marco was still waiting, sweeping him up in a hug, which was eagerly returned, and hissing in his ear, “What are you _doing_ here?!”

Marco chuckled softly—oh, _god,_ he had missed that sound without the rustle of phone static—and replied quietly, “I'll tell you everything, but first come meet my mom.”

Jean stiffened. “What.” It wasn't even a question.

“You know I can't drive,” Marco said.

The worst part was that logically, it made sense. But Jean was not emotionally prepared to meet Marco's mother. Not yet.

Just then, he heard the door open, and he quickly let go of Marco.

“Marco? Sweetie? Did you need me to intervene?” Jean looked over and saw a middle-aged woman with an incredibly kind face peeking in through the door. Immediately, Jean took in Marco's nose, Marco's eyes, and, perfectly, Marco's smile reflected on this woman's face. She was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his mother.

“Ah, no,” Marco replied, hand still gripping Jean's apron. “His manager let him go.”

Jean took a moment to see where Yvonne had gone, but she had disappeared into the back of the store.

After a silence that seemed a lot longer to Jean than it actually was, his (admittedly miniscule) sense of tact kicked in and he found his manners.

He extended his hand to Marco's mom. “Hi, Mrs. Bodt. I'm Jean. It's very nice to meet you.”

She took his hand and smiled, and again, Jean was struck by the likeness to Marco's smile. He almost felt like he was looking at an older, unscarred version of his boyfriend. Who was a woman. His metaphor was falling apart. Anyway, she was replying. “Please! Call me Laura. It's so nice to finally meet you! I've heard a lot about you.” Her grin became sly, and Jean felt his face heat up. He hoped he wasn't blushing.

“Ahh—all good things,” Marco cut in with a wave of his hand.

Mrs. Bodt—Laura—yeah, Jean wasn't going to be comfortable with that any time soon (see: ever), smoothed down her skirt with both hands and said. “What else is there? Anyway, I wanted to take you out to dinner. We should probably go ahead and find somewhere if we want to beat the rush.”

Jean, overwhelmed, could only nod silently and follow, almost forgetting to hang his work apron up on the hook on the way out.

-

Both Marco and Mrs.—(“ _Please_ just call me Laura”)—Bodt refused to answer any of his questions until they got to the restaurant. The drive should have taken about ten minutes, but Mrs... _Laura_ got lost, and they ended up finally pulling into the parking lot almost half an hour later.

That day, Jean learned that Marco was a _terrible_ navigator.

“Turn left!”

“Up ahead?”

“No, now...ah, you missed it.”

And so they circled the block and pulled into the back entrance of the lot instead. Jean had been pretty quiet the whole time, answering questions that were asked of him, which had been simple things, how had his summer been, did he like his job, was he looking forward to going back to school.

Finally, though, the three of them were inside and seated at a table, the hostess already gone with their drink orders.

“So,” Jean said, “Am I allowed to ask why you guys are here, now?”

“You complaining?” Marco teased him gently, smiling.

Jean grimaced. “It's a ten hour drive! I already bought the train ticket for tomorrow!”

“It was my idea,” Mrs. Bodt-Laura interjected, “I thought it would be fun to surprise you.”

Jean turned to face her, jaw hanging open stupidly, and she smiled Marco's smile at him.

“Besides,” she went on, “I wanted to meet you. Marco likes you a _lot_.” She elbowed her son in the side.

Marco blushed and nodded.

Overwhelmed, Jean just put his head down on the table and covered it with his hands. He tried not to hear Mrs. Bodt and Marco's laughter.

It was only a second later that the drinks came, though, so Jean was forced to put his head back up and pretend he wasn't blushing redder than the gaudy vinyl covering their table.

The waiter assured them that he would be back in a few minutes, and Jean actually opened his menu, grimacing at seeing that all of the items were over $10.

He talked a little bit with Marco and his mom while they looked over the menu and silently decided that he would order the cheapest meal offered—since Mrs. Bodt had insisted on paying.

The waiter returned, and Marco and his mom ordered first, getting to Jean last. He started when they got to him, having been a little zoned out, but quickly ordered.

The waiter started writing it down, but Marco leveled him with a look. “Jean...”

“What?!” he asked in reply.

“You're ordering chicken nuggets.”

“Uhh,” Jean said stupidly, “I love chicken nuggets?”

“You told me you couldn't stand them because you ate too many as a kid.” Marco's eyebrows were a flat line.

Jean faked a laugh and said, “Did I say that—I _meant_ to say that they're nostalgic and remind my of my childhood—“ But Marco cut him off.

“Are you ordering them because they're cheap?”

Jean didn't answer, looking down.

Mrs. Bodt smiled at the waiter, who looked distinctly uncomfortable, and said, “He'll have the sirloin. Jean, how do you like your steak?”

“Medium well,” he said, slumping in defeat.

The waiter quickly scribbled the order down and left again. Mrs. Bodt and Marco both looked at him with their identical smiles. It was slightly intimidating. He could feel himself reddening under their stares.

Finally, Marco's mom looked away, over at her son, and said, “He is _really_ cute.”

“Isn't he?” Marco agreed, still looking at Jean, and Jean just put his head back on the table, not sure how he was going to get through this meal.

-

After some resistance on Jean's part, Mrs. Bodt dropped him off in front of his mom's apartment building before they went to their hotel. He was a little embarrassed that they would both have to see the ramshackle, rust and water stained structure, but, well, he _had_ warned Marco that he didn't come from a well-off background.

As he walked up the creaky metal stairs to the top floor, he tried to sort everything out. Marco's mom—who had taken to throwing ice cubes from her drink at him every time he called her something other than 'Laura'--was, in a word, awesome. Jean kind of thought that good parents, and stable, closely-knit families were a myth. He had a weird sort of turmoil in his stomach when he watched Marco joke with his mom, saying things he'd never dare to say to his own, trusting her with things he could never talk to his own about. He wasn't _jealous—_ he put a lot of effort into not caring about his family situation—but he still couldn't help but subconsciously compare them to himself.

He sighed, and stopped in front of his mom's door. He didn't even think of it as _his_ home, even though he had a bedroom, and all of his meager possessions were there, and he thought that was probably very telling. Jean fished his key out of his pocket and let himself in.

There was a light on in the kitchen. His mom was home. Not really wanting to talk to her just yet, Jean quietly locked the door back and went to his room.

He flopped back on his hard mattress and thought about Marco. Unexpected circumstances or no, he couldn't deny that it had been great to see him again, hear him laugh, watch him light up when he was excited about something.

Jean turned over onto his side and curled around a pillow. He was turning into a sap. It was Marco's fault.

He found that he didn't really mind.

PDA wasn't a thing Jean did, not because of who he was with, but because he was uncomfortable with it as an institution. He _especially_ didn't do PDA when the only other person around was his boyfriend's mother. As such, he kind of wished he'd gotten to see Marco alone, just for a few minutes. Just so he could hug him and kiss him and say stupid feelings-y things like ' _hey, I missed you,_ ' and _'I love you,_ ' without freezing from embarrassment.

Well. He _had_ gotten to kiss Marco good night. Only because he had followed him out of the car and Mrs. Bodt had promised to close her eyes. He hugged the pillow tighter, as if he could capture the remainder of his boyfriend's heat against him.

He opened his eyes and looked around his shadowed room, vision falling on his empty suitcase, lying open on the floor. This might be a good time to actually pack. He rolled into a sitting position and tossed the crumpled pillow toward the end of the bed. Walking over to his closet, he sloppily folded a few shirts and threw them into the suitcase, frowning at it. They were going to get wrinkled. He crouched over it and packed them with more care before moving onto shorts and at least _one_ pair of well-fitted (Jean Kirschstein refused to admit he wore skinny) jeans.

He heard his door open slightly, and saw his mom peeking in.

“I heard noise,” she said.

“You could knock,” Jean replied, going back to shaking out and folding clothes.

“Going somewhere?”

“Yeah. Out of town. Two weeks,” he replied shortly.

“This is the first I've heard of this.”

“I told you almost a month ago,” Jean lied smoothly. She wouldn't remember anything from that long ago anyway. He saw her shrug and shake her head in his periphery.

“Can I at least know where you're going?” She sounded exasperated. Jean rolled his eyes where she couldn't see.

He huffed a sigh. “Jinae.”

“That place? It's in the middle of nowhere! What are you doing there?”

“Visiting a friend,” Jean said with the appropriate vagueness that would let her know that he wasn't really interested in continuing the conversation.

“Okay,” she said with an air of resignation, throwing her hands up and leaving. Jean sighed again and finished picking out clothes to take with him. He and his mom never really _fought._ They just...didn't communicate. They didn't interact much at all.

That way it was easier not to notice the bags under her eyes, the fact that she hardly ever got a good night's sleep, that she hated her job, that she didn't seem to have any close friends.

Jean shook his head to clear his thoughts, throwing socks at his suitcase with no regard for whether they matched or not. His phone buzzed on his nightstand.

It was a message from Marco. He opened it.

From: Marco PoloBodt

I've got my eye on you, Kirschstein.

Attachments: IMG_0187

Curious, Jean downloaded the picture, and just about threw his phone laughing when he saw what it was. There was a picture of Marco's prosthetic eye sitting on top of a piece of hotel stationary with the word 'you' written on it in block letters.

Jean typed a reply.

To: Marco PoloBodt

u fucking didnt...! That is either the best or the worst pun ever

He packed a little bit more while he waited for his reply, which came quickly.

From: Marco PoloBodt

I saw an opportunity and I took it. Besides, all great puns are also terrible.

Jean started to reply but another message came in.

From: Marco PoloBodt

I'm really glad I could see you today. I missed you a lot.

Jean felt himself blush at that, which was _stupid_ because he was alone in his room. Unexpectedly, his phone buzzed with a third message.

From: Marco PoloBodt

I look forward to seeing more of you tomorrow. ;)

Jean actually did throw his phone (gently, onto his bed; he couldn't afford a new one) after reading that message, and scrubbed his hand over his face. _'That comment_ could _have been so innocent,_ ' he thought to himself, and walk-crawl-flopped over to his bed to get his phone back so he could reply.

To: Marco PoloBodt

ur mom not reading over ur shoulder anymore??

Almost shyly, he typed a second response.

To: Marco PoloBodt

I missed u too

Both of the replies came almost simultaneously.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Who says she isn't? Maybe she's cheering me on! (JK, she's reading a book)

From: Marco PoloBodt

<3

Jean tried (and failed) not to smile at Marco's stupid little text heart, even though he was shaking his head, and finished packing everything that he wouldn't need to use the next morning before they came to pick him up. His suitcase was really full, and he hoped he was bringing enough clothing. Surely Marco's family would let him wash his stuff while he was there? He told himself to quit worrying, and grabbed his laptop from where it had been charging in the corner, opening up a game of Tetris to kill time until he was tired enough to go to sleep.

-

Marco rode in the backseat with Jean on the way back to Jinae, or, rather, Jean mostly slept in his lap or on his shoulder. Car rides made Jean sleepy. Marco filed that away under 'adorable things about Jean even though he claimed not to be adorable.'

Besides, he knew that Jean was nervous around his mom, and the prospect of spending ten hours in a car with her probably frightened him a little bit. Well, he seemed to _like_ her, which was great, because Marco _really_ wanted Jean to like his family, but he didn't seem comfortable talking to her like an actual human being. Marco wondered how much of it was because of Jean's own family. He'd never been able to get much out of Jean on the subject, but he had gleaned that something had happened to Jean's dad, and that Jean didn't get along with his mom. No siblings to speak of.

He ran his hand through Jean's hair where his head was resting against Marco's leg, scrunched up as he was on the seat drowsing, and looked out the window. The road was getting hillier, and the trees that lined the highway taller, opening in gaps occasionally to show rolling pastures and fields.

They were maybe twenty minutes out of town.

Which was good, because his butt was asleep and he needed to pee.

He poked Jean's cheek, making him twitch. He booped him on the nose, and his eyes opened blearily yet angrily for a second before closing again. Finally, Marco settled for tugging gently but insistently on the strands of Jean's hair which had fallen over his eyes until he finally stirred, batting away Marco's hand and fixing his hair as he sat up groggily.

“Good morning,” Marco said, smiling in response to the sleepy glare he was fixed with. “We'll be in town in, like, 15 minutes.”

“Has it been that long?” Jean asked over a yawn. “That didn't feel like ten hours.”

“That's because you slept for six of them, Jean,” Marco reminded him.

Still yawning, Jean replied, “Did I really? Why did you let me do that?”

Marco sighed a laugh, and shook his head in amusement. In the front seat, his mom switched the radio station, which had been getting static-y, to a local one, and Jean cringed when a sugary bubblegum pop song started playing. Marco laughed again. He was such a hipster.

His mom entertained them for the rest of the drive, telling Jean about their favorite local restaurants that he _had_ to try while he was in town, and other things to check out before he left, and Jean listened with polite, if awkward interest, responding kind of stiltedly.

But Marco had warned his mom that Jean was a giant loser dork, so she knew what to expect, and took it in stride.

When the car finally pulled into the driveway, Marco was torn between his desire to help everyone carry their things in and his incredible need to pee.

He compromised, shouldering his backpack from the trunk and carrying his mom's bag in his good arm (he knew Jean would insist on getting his own suitcase so he didn't even bother with that). With that, he half jogged toward the door.

His mom shouted after him, “Where are you going?”

“Bathroom!” he called back. The front door was open (they never really bothered to lock it during the day) and he set the bags down before letting himself into the guest bathroom right off the entryway.

Before he left, he heard the front door open again, and Jean hesitantly laughing at something his mom said. Good. They were getting along.

He slipped back into the entryway and saw Jean's suitcase next to his and his mom's bags, and then quickly followed them into the kitchen. His dad was there, looking over, a glass of juice in hand.

“You're back!” he said, “How was the drive?”

“Long, mostly, but no complications” his mom replied, ushering Jean and Marco forward.

Blinking, like he'd just noticed that they were there, his dad fumbled to set the juice on the counter and stepped forward with a hand extended. Equally awkward, Jean shook his hand.

“Hi! I'm Marco's dad! You can call me dad, though!” he exclaimed, still vigorously shaking Jean's hand.

“Phillip...” his mom said, while Marco tried not to laugh at the expression on Jean's face.

“Phillip! I meant you can call me Phillip!” he amended, finally letting go of Jean's hand.

“I'm. I'm Jean,” he replied.

“Phillip was _very excited_ to meet you,” his mom assured Jean wryly. “We've been hearing for _weeks!_ 'Marco, when are you gonna let your boyfriend come over?'” Marco smiled; his mom did a fair imitation of his dad.

His dad quickly changed the subject, “So, your name! Are you French?”

“My mom's parents are,” Jean answered, looking very overwhelmed at everything that was going on.

“Anyway, Phillip,” his mom started, “We'll have plenty of time to talk later. Your _wife_ just made a ten hour drive and deserves to have her husband take her out to dinner. And a movie. Right now.”

Marco immediately caught on to what she was doing, and felt his face heat up.

Jean and his dad just looked confused.

“Oh—uhh, aren't you tired? I can cook something, or order takeout.”

“No. I want to go out for dinner,” she insisted.

“Well, shouldn't we invite the boys?”

“There's plenty of food in the fridge; they can fend for themselves.” She winked at Jean, and he finally understood, too, his cheeks going bright red. She was trying to give them _alone time._

“Um, alright, if that's what you want,” his dad said, “let me get my shoes.”

No sooner had the front door clicked shut than Jean and Marco made heated eye contact.

“Marco,” Jean began, “I know I haven't seen you in over a month and we have lots to talk about and shit. But goddamn I really just want to make out right now.”

“A good plan, yes,” Marco replied intelligently, and with no finesse, they crashed their faces together, teeth clacking with the force of it.

Jean recovered before Marco did, brushing his fingers back through Marco's hair and letting his palm come to rest on the side of his face. The bad side. Sometimes it still didn't feel quite real that he _really didn't care_. But then Jean wrapped his other arm around Marco's chest, pressing their bodies together, and he was brought back to the task at hand.

He put his arm around Jean's waist, and walked him a step backwards so that Jean was leaning against the counter without breaking the kiss.

There was no buildup; it didn't start out slow. A month and a half of separation made sure of that. Their mouths moved against one another, hot, wet, open, maybe even a little too much tongue, but not lacking in enthusiasm. Jean sucked Marco's bottom lip between his teeth and worried at it gently. Someone made a noise. It might have been Marco.

Jean's hand fell from Marco's face to his chest, roaming, re-familiarizing. Marco let his lips fall to Jean's jaw, then his throat. He let out a sigh of pleasure at the contact and arched his neck back to allow Marco better access, but it was a bad angle.

Struck by inspiration, Marco murmured into Jean's neck, “Hop up on the counter.”

He made a sound of assent, and Marco backed away for a moment while Jean raised himself up to sit on the edge, pulling Marco back in by wrapping his legs around Marco's hips.

Marco took a deep breath and licked his lips, trying not to get...too excited, yet, and went back to what he was doing, pressing kisses into Jean's jawline and throat, scraping the sensitized skin with his teeth.

It was about then that they both heard the front door open, and froze. That was how Marco's dad found them; Jean perched on the edge of the counter, precariously close to the half-filled glass of juice that was still there, wrapped around his son, who had his mouth firmly attached to the spot Jean liked, just under his ear.

“Oh!” Phillip said, as they scrambled to get into more appropriate positions, “ _That's_ what she meant. I get it now.”

Neither of the boys said anything.

“I forgot my wallet,” his dad went on, picking up the object where it had been on top of the fridge. “Okay, leaving for real this time. Have fun; be safe.”

He walked out, seemingly oblivious to the utter mortification he had caused, and Marco heard the front door close again.

He looked over for Jean, but he had fallen to the ground, and was curled into the fetal position on the kitchen floor.

“Why does this keep happening?” he whimpered.

“Maybe because it didn't happen when we were teenagers, and the universe is making up for it, now,” Marco speculated petulantly.

Jean just whimpered pitifully in response. Marco hesitated for a long while before he spoke next, shy, even though he was sure Jean would like his idea.

“Uhh, do you want to go upstairs? My room has a lock on the door.”

Jean was back on his feet so quickly that Marco wasn't sure how he'd managed to stand up at all, and was leading Marco down a hallway by the hand.

“Jean.” Marco said.

“Yeah?” Jean replied.

“The stairs are the other way.”

Jean sighed, and muttered curses under his breath.

Marco smiled at him. “Follow _me._ ”

-

Jean woke up early, startled by the unfamiliar softness of the mattress, the unfamiliar shadows on the ceiling, the unfamiliar warmth against his side. Wait. He remembered; he was in Jinae. With Marco. He turned his head, saw his boyfriend there, curled on his side with his forehead pressed to Jean's shoulder. He was more than half-tempted to turn over, wrap his arms around his boyfriend, and go to back to sleep.

Except that he had to pee. Urgently.

His stomach growled. Also, he was hungry. They never had gotten around to eating dinner last night.

Reluctantly, he slipped out from under the sheets, quietly going over to where his suitcase was lying in the corner, grabbed a set of clothes, and went to the bathroom down the hall.

He figured a shower was in order—especially after last night, so he kicked his boxers off and stepped into the tub, pulling the curtain shut and turning on the water—managing not to yelp when the initial blast was the temperature of glacial ice.

He soaked his hair and body, running over the events of the evening before in his mind. After Jean had gotten over the mortification of being walked in on by Marco's dad—who hadn't seemed upset, at least, though that somehow almost made it worse—they had gone to Marco's room, and hadn't really come back out.

Jean had gotten the world's best 'I missed you' blowjob, and his dick twitched under the shower spray at the memory. He smirked. He'd given as good as he'd gotten. He'd never heard Marco so noisy, before.

Aggressive cuddling had followed, interrupted by occasional making out. They had talked—nothing heavy, just. What they'd done while they'd been apart. Jean told stories about his most ridiculous customers, smiling every time he made Marco laugh. They'd reminisced about the previous year at university—who they'd kept in touch with, and what they were up to.

He asked if Marco's parents would be cool with him sleeping in Marco's room—and he had seem genuinely confused as to why it wouldn't be okay. They were both adults, he had insisted, and Jean, after finally wrapping his head around the fact that Marco, apparently, had really cool parents, accepted it. He liked Marco's room. It was open and uncluttered, but everywhere, there were little signs that made it obvious who lived there. The color choices, soft browns and golds, and the way Marco arranged things. Jean felt more at home there than he did in his own bedroom.

Jean grinned to himself as he used Marco's soap and shampoo, finishing his shower quickly and hopped out, rifling through the cabinets until he found the towels. He dried off and got dressed, hanging the towel up and sneaking back into the hallway. He peeked back into Marco's bedroom, but he was still soundly asleep, curled into the same position he'd been in when Jean had left.

Jean very nearly went and woke him up, but he decided to at least let him sleep until he'd had a cup of coffee—Marco had told him to make himself at home, and while he felt _incredibly uncomfortable_ messing with various appliances and food in Marco's family's home...coffee. He _really_ wanted a cup of coffee. Mind made up, he left the door cracked and went downstairs, taking a few wrong turns before he found the kitchen.

It was still early morning—the light streaming through the wide window above the stove was softly filtered through pink and lavender clouds in the sky. He took a moment to look out the window; sunrises looked different here than they did in Trost. Quieter. Maybe it was the lack of city smog.

The smell of coffee took his attention away from that, though. There was already a full pot. Did they have it on an automatic timer or...

“You're an early riser.” The sound of Mrs. Bodt's voice startled him, and he jumped, spinning to face her. She was sitting at the kitchen table in a long fuzzy bathrobe, a novel held open in one hand and her other wrapped around a steaming mug.

“Uh—yeah, I woke up a little. Disoriented,” he replied, blushing in the wan light because they _both_ knew exactly where he had woken up. She just smiled, marked her book and set it down.

“Coffee?” she offered.

“Uh, please,” Jean replied.

“Let me get you a mug,” she said, getting out of her chair and going across the kitchen to the far cabinet, selecting a mug, and bringing it over to Jean. He almost groaned when he saw the pattern. It was a herd of horses, galloping around the circumference of the cup.

Mrs. Bodt showed him where they kept the cream and sugar, and Jean fixed himself a cup of morning caffeine while she went and sat back down. That done, he dithered. Did he loiter in the kitchen? Did he go back upstairs? Did he awkwardly sit at the table with his boyfriend's mom?

Again, she solved the problem for him. “Join me. It's nice to have another morning person in the house.”

Not-quite-reluctant, he took the seat catercorner to Mrs. Bodt, sipping his drink. He was _genuinely going_ to make an attempt at conversation, but he was immediately distracted by the set of family photographs on the wall behind Marco's mom, illuminated by the soft light coming through the bay windows by the table. Each one had five members: Dark-skinned Mr. Bodt and fair-skinned Mrs. Bodt, two sons and a daughter all somewhere in between. He picked out Marco immediately. He was, probably, seven or eight in the first picture, missing a tooth and smiling widely. In the second, he was probably twelve, beginning to lose the baby fat off his face, and even more freckled than he was now.

The last one was different. He was about sixteen, thin, tired-looking, his smile forced. The scars on his face stood out lividly; they had faded since the picture was taken.

Jean's mind flashed back to something Marco had said, not long after he met. That he was pretty comfortable, physically and emotionally, with his disabilities, now, but that he had struggled, for a long time. Looking into that unhappy face, Jean felt like he was getting a window into that time period.

“Enjoying the family portraits? Marco always hated them, when he was little. Didn't like sitting still long enough,” Mrs. Bodt asked, snapping Jean out of his thoughts. He hoped his expressions hadn't revealed too much, but then he realized that he had never actually lowered the coffee cup from his mouth, and it was probably hard for her to see what face he was making anyway.

He made a quick cover. “I've never seen any pictures of him as a kid before.”

“Oh, he was _precious,_ ” she said, lighting up with the grin of a mother who secretly loved embarrassing her children. “Hold on.” With that, she got up again, going into another room. Curiosity slightly piqued, Jean stayed where he was, sipping his coffee absently, and trying not to focus on the last picture. He wondered why they would even hang it. Or maybe he was just reading too much into everything; he didn't know.

A moment later, Marco's mom returned, excitedly setting a fat photo album on the table. The front was labeled: _Marco_

She flipped on the kitchen light and scooted her chair to the same side of the table as Jean's, sitting down next to him and opening the album with glee.

“I am so excited to show you these—Marco would never let me if he were awake. I don't think we're in danger, though; he'd sleep all day if you let him.”

“Don't I know it,” Jean agreed with a grin, beginning to relax slightly around Mrs. Bodt. He still wasn't going to call her Laura, though.

She went through the album, telling (genuinely adorable) stories about things Marco had done as a toddler, things he had said, the way he had pronounced words. He had been _that child_ to cry his first day at school, and had been enrolled in ballet classes for a few years (also adorable).

Jean got to see Marco, covered in cake at his first birthday, covered in finger paint at his second, crying because he dropped a bowling ball on his foot at his seventh, with braces, going through puberty, and then, suddenly, after a few pictures from Marco's first and only year of doing color guard as a high school freshman, the album ended. Abruptly. There were still blank pages.

Neither of them had to say it; they both knew that the accident had happened that year.

The mood went from light and jovial to serious as quickly as Jean flipped over to that accusingly blank page.

“He, well, he was in a coma for a long time. And he didn't like pictures for a long time after that.”

“Yeah,” Jean said in reply, barely above a breath.

“How much has he told you about it?” she asked him softly, and he turned to meet her eyes.

“I know what happened, in general...I don't know the details. He, well, he hasn't really seemed like he wanted to talk about it.”

She smiled, a little sadly. “Mm, that sounds like him.” She fiddled with the plastic film on the album pages. “Did you want me to tell you anything? Any questions?”

Jean thought about it for a second, but it seemed wrong to talk to her about it. “I mean, I'm a little curious, yeah,” he admitted, and took a breath, hoping he could phrase this in a way that didn't offend Marco's mom. Normally he didn't give two shits about whether or not people found him rude. But. _Marco's mom._ “But, I feel like asking you would be invading his privacy. I'd rather him tell me when he's ready to.”

She was quiet for a moment, and nodded...approvingly? “You know, Jean, I like you.”

“Hah?” he asked, startled by the sudden conversation shift.

“You're a remarkably genuine young man. And from what I've seen, and from what he's told me, you're really good for my son.” She shrugged, and smiled at him.

Jean didn't know what to say. ' _Thank you,_ ' didn't seem appropriate. So, he just nodded.

She gestured toward the stairs. “The sun's officially up; go get lazy out of bed.” She took Jean's horse mug and hers to the sink, and Jean did as she suggested, going upstairs to wake his boyfriend up.

-

It had taken a lot of effort on Jean's part to convince Marco to get up. He had started by spooning up behind him and kissing the back of his neck, but Marco had only sighed in his sleep and snuggled back against Jean.

It had been, in a word, counterproductive.

He'd tried talking to him, saying the most absurd things he could think of, anything that would make Marco tune in.

“Marco. _Marco._ I'm pregnant. You're the father. _Marco._ Reiner texted me; he finally admitted that he's in a threesome with Bertl and Annie.” Jean sighed, and brought out the big guns. “Marco, I've always secretly thought Jaeger was pretty hot....god, no, I can't say it, even jokingly.”

Deciding that it was time to go big or go home, he bit Marco's shoulder, not hard enough to leave a mark...but definitely hard enough to startle him awake, making him flail backwards against the offending set of teeth...smacking Jean's nose hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“ _Heck_ ,” he said, sitting up, while Jean rubbed his nose gently. Well, it wasn't broken. “What made you think that was a good idea?” Marco asked.

“Nothing else was waking you up,” Jean answered, _not_ pouting.

Marco sighed, and smiled. “You're such a dork.”

“No, you are,” Jean replied maturely.

“Anyway, did I sleep past noon again?” he looked at his cell phone, on the nightstand, and then slowly turned back to Jean where he was still laying pathetically on the edge of the bed, the throbbing in his nose only just beginning to subside. “Jean, it is barely nine in the morning.”

“I _know,_ but I've been up for two and a half hours,” Jean said, sitting up. “Your mom showed me your baby pictures; do you really want to see what she'll do next if you sleep for too much longer?”

“She didn't,” Marco whispered, then, yelling, “Mom, you didn't!”

There was a laugh, and a muffled reply from somewhere else in the house. “I did!”

Marco covered his face with his hand, but he could see a blush through the gaps in his fingers.

“If it helps, you were the cutest little ballerina,” Jean said with a smirk, and Marco moaned, “Stop,” in response, stretching out the word and hunching over further.

-

Marco spent the first couple of days of Jean's visit showing him around his town. Jinae was just that—a town, in the foothills of the mountains, primarily agricultural and ranching businesses. It wasn't the big city that Trost was, but it had a rustic charm that had never lost its appeal for Marco, even though he'd lived there for twenty-one years.

Jean's city boy reaction to the sight of horses tied up outside the diner had been actually perfect, side-eying Marco and whispering, ' _Is that legal?_ '

He'd convinced his dad to drive them out to the national park up in the mountains for a day, and they'd wandered the lower trails, found a pool with a rocky overhang and a waterfall splashing into it, and a sign that said that swimming was permitted. No one else had been around—Jean had coaxed Marco into taking off his outer clothes and getting into the pool.

The water had been _freezing._ But...the warm slide of Jean's lips against his, compared to the frigid spray from the waterfall, beating against their shoulders as they stood underneath it. All worth it.

They had laid out on the rocks by the waterfall pool and let the sun dry off the skin and boxers before going on—or, that had been the plan, and it had almost succeeded, except that they heard voices coming up the trail before they were completely dry, so they had frantically scrambled to get their clothes in order, barely managing to adopt nonchalant poses in time for the family with three small children to enter the area.

Day four was coming to a close, with midnight fast approaching, and Marco's parents had already gone to bed. Jean had gotten hungry, so they were sitting in the kitchen, eating macaroni and cheese and discussing Jean's irrational fear of horses and how it was _especially_ ironic that he'd been nicknamed 'horseface' in middle school, due to his long face.

“When have you even been around horses, city boy?” Marco asked.

Jean gestured with his spoon and answered while his mouth was still full. “There was this field trip in elementary school, and, I dunno, they're just so _big._ ”

Jean was talking to Marco, yeah, but he kept getting the idea that he was looking somewhere behind him. Finally, Marco turned around, and saw the family portraits hanging there.

His stomach soured when he looked at the lowest photo, when he'd still been in physical therapy. That wasn't long after he'd started being able to walk on his own again. He was still camera shy now, but back then. He'd hated it.

“Whatcha looking at?” Marco asked, hoping Jean would just come out and say it.

“Where are your brother and sister?” Jean asked, almost too quickly. Marco frowned; he'd always been free with his curiosity before.

“Nicolas has a job just outside of Sina, and Ruth is taking summer classes. She's 19, but she's ahead of me in college and she never lets me live it down.” Marco shook his head. He wasn't very close to his siblings—though they got along alright.

“Ah,” was all Jean said, and he waited a long time before going on. “Also—about the bottom picture.”

Marco smiled. There it was. He'd just been working up to it. “That was—heck, less than a year after I came out of the coma?” He took a breath. “I've never actually told you the whole story, have I?”

Jean met his eyes, for just a moment. “Not...entirely,” he replied, and shrugged. “You...never really seemed like you wanted to talk about it.”

Marco shrugged, too. “I guess I tried really hard to move past it.” He made eye contact with Jean again. “I want to talk about it, now, though.”

Jean nodded. Marco sighed. “Not here. Let's cuddle.”

They quickly rinsed the bowls and left them in the sink before going upstairs, curling together under Marco's blanket, face-to-face, legs tangled.

Marco took a deep breath, and decided not to think about it too hard. “I told you I was in a car accident, right?”

“Yeah,” he breathed a chuckle. “The first time we met.”

Marco smiled at the memory, and took Jean's hand, twining their fingers together in the space between their chests. “I didn't tell you that I hit my head so hard that there was...pretty severe brain damage.”

Marco's eyes were cast toward Jean's chest, but he could feel Jean's on his face. He went on. “They initially put me at fifty-fifty for ever waking up. Within a couple of months, they lowered it to a ten percent chance. But I guess I was resilient, or lucky, or something, because after about eight months comatose, I did wake up, with no, like, _debilitating,_ effects of brain damage.”

Jean gave him a curious look, so Marco expanded, “I have to take antidepressants, and my coordination is a little off, but it could have been a lot worse.” Jean nodded and made a noise of agreement, though he frowned slightly.

He went quiet for a moment. Admitting the next part was hard. But it was _Jean,_ who loved him, and that thought made his stomach flutter and gave him the strength to go on. “Anyway. There was a pretty long while, there, after I woke up, when I wished I hadn't.” Jean's fingers tightened on his reflexively. “Don't worry,” he assured him with a soft laugh. “I'm better, now. I found a lot to live for.”

“I know,” Jean murmured.

“Anyway, I went to a couple of years of trauma counseling and physical therapy, had reconstructive surgery done—on my face, by the way, _god,_ you should have seen it before—and got used to doing stuff with my left hand. Did I ever tell you I'm, you know, _naturally_ right-handed?”

“You're shitting me,” Jean said, disbelief clear on his face, “Your handwriting's better than mine is!”

“Jean, have you seen that youtube video about the elephant who paints with her trunk? I'm pretty sure that her handwriting is better than yours,” Marco assured him with a smile, and Jean pouted adorably. But he still hadn't said everything.

“So that's my story. But, god, my family. I think it was harder on them. Mom aged ten years while I was comatose. It wasn't until recently that my brother started looking me in the eye, again—he blames himself, even though I've told him again and again that _I_ don't blame him. Dad almost seemed afraid to talk to me for a couple of years—and I don't know how much of that was me pushing everyone away, but, still. It was hard on everyone.”

He looked up, and, as always, Jean wore his every emotion plain on his face. Despair. Grief.

“But, it got better. Not all at once. Not really, you know, linearly? That was a bad way of putting it. It was sort of a two steps forward, one step back thing. I came to terms with everything. I met you.” He smiled, and Jean grinned back. Marco leaned in, and they shared a soft kiss.

When they broke apart, he said, barely above a whisper. “I know that things will always be...a little bit harder for me, now, than they could have been. But it's okay. I'm okay with it, now.” And he pressed their lips together again, moving, gentle and close-mouthed, conveying all the emotionally charged energy of the conversation they'd just had. Jean's free hand brushed through Marco's hair, toying with the strands in a way that was equal parts invigorating and soothing.

Marco let go of Jean's hand, stroking his arm, his chest, tracing his collarbones through his shirt with his fingertips. He guided his hand lower, to where Jean's shirt had ridden up under the blanket, drawing nothings on the V of his hips until Jean had to pull back with a groan. Marco opened his eyes, and found his boyfriend's already open, honey-brown in the soft lamplight, irises a thin ring surrounding his pupils, which were blown wide. His lips were already reddened from kissing, slightly parted, his breathing heavy.

Marco licked his lips and swallowed, not missing how Jean's eyes went to his mouth as he did so. After everything he'd said, after hearing (more or less) the full story, despite his scars and his imperfections, Jean _wanted_ him. His own body stirred in response.

“Jean,” he whined, and the tone of his voice was enough to convey to Jean _exactly_ what he wanted him to do. He flipped himself so that he was on top of Marco, hips slotted between his thighs. Jean rolled his hips down, and Marco sighed, throwing his head back against the pillow. His boyfriend's lips met his a moment later, hot, now, open, using teeth and tongue this time. Jean thrust against him again, and Marco rocked back up, but it wasn't enough. He grabbed Jean's ass and pulled down, seeking more friction.

“Mm, pants,” Jean said, and Marco understood. They separated long enough to kick off their shorts and boxers, and Jean climbed back on top of Marco.

Their cocks brushed, and they both groaned at the contact. The friction was enough, then, at first, but they were both left wanting more. Jean made a noise of initiative and used one of his arms to dig in the drawer of Marco's nightstand, finding the bottle of lube that he kept there and uncapping it one-handed, squeezing a liberal amount into his palm. He set the bottle back on the nightstand and took both their dicks loosely in his fist. Marco hissed, and Jean fiercely whispered, “Fuck; that's hella cold.”

But it warmed up quickly, and then Marco gasped and bucked his hips into Jean's fist as he ground down against him. Jean leaned down to kiss him, but they were both too lost in sensation for any technique, so they really just pressed their open mouths in the general direction of the others. He was moving his hips blindly, his cock sliding against Jean's, against his hand, and he could feel a heat starting to coil low in his belly. It wasn't going to be long for him, he thought, as he gripped his boyfriend's shoulder so tight he feared he'd be leaving marks.

Judging by the small, high-pitched whines Jean was making with every thrust, he was close, too.

Not even a minute later, Jean was arching his back to look at Marco, beneath him, and he groaned, lowly, “Fuck, Marco.” He closed his eyes and a convulsive shudder ran through him as he came, spilling over Marco's belly. He collapsed for a few seconds, but moved so that he was only half-on-top of Marco, one leg hooked over his, and jerked him off, watching his face as he did so.

It would have embarrassed Marco any other time, but he was too far gone to care, and his own orgasm ripped through him, and he let out a soft, wordless cry.

They lay together for a while, knowing that they would need to clean up before they could go to sleep, but not wanting the moment to end, yet. That had been...intense.

“I love you, Jean,” Marco said, quietly, turning his head to the side so that they were eye-to-eye.

Jean kissed him, hard, but not lingering. “I love you too,” he replied, and this time, there was no awkward embarrassment at having said it. Just sincerity.

Marco smiled.

Yeah, he was doing okay.

-

About a week into Jean's visit, they officially managed to get _bored._ Honestly, there just wasn't a lot to do in Marco's town, and there were only so many times they could watch all the original Star Trek movies before even _Jean_ started to get tired of them.

“We'd have more options if I could drive,” Marco grumbled, while they tried to figure out something to do, “Sorry.”

“Yes, Marco,” Jean said sarcastically, “How dare you get into a nearly-fatal accident which prevents you from being able to get a driver's license. You're so _selfish._ ”

“Shut up,” he laughed and bumped his shoulder playfully.

“Well,” Marco went on after a moment, “Have you thought about where we're gonna live next semester?”

“Shit, no, I haven't,” Jean answered with a start. “Only freshman are allowed to live in the dorms, right?”

“Yeah, limited space or something? I was talking to Armin on Skype about a week ago and he recommended some apartment complexes, if you wanted to start looking into anything.”

Jean made a face like someone had served him soup with a large cockroach floating in it. “I don't want to live anywhere near Jaeger. _Do you remember_ how many times he walked in on us last spring?”

“All too well,” Marco said with a sigh. Jean felt stupid, gross warm fuzzies at the idea that he and Marco were going to move in together—that it wasn't even something they needed to discuss; it was simply a given. “However,” he continued, “Apartments _lock_.”

“Still. Maybe we should. Ask around,” Jean said lamely, and Marco rolled his eyes at him.

Marco sighed. “Later. I'm _bored._ Want to go on an adventure?”

“Will it be more entertaining than this marathon of _House Hunters International_?” Jean asked with a wry grin, making a jerky gesture at the living room television with his thumb.

“Probably. Let's go explore the woods behind my house. I haven't been back there since I was a kid.”

“We're going to get lost.” Jean's voice was grave.

“Probably,” Marco said with a smile.

“Fuck it, let's go,” Jean said, getting off the couch.

They got lost.

Between Marco insisting that he remembered one tree or another from his childhood, and Jean being equally insistent that they had already passed that boulder three or four times, they ended up completely disoriented, with no idea which way went back to the house.

“We're going to die here,” Marco said, sitting on the boulder which they _had_ passed three or four times. He remembered it. It looked like Residence Director Shadis' face.

“I don't have a last will and testament,” Jean announced, suddenly very important, since they probably _were_ going to die there.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It still had reception. He sent a group text to Connie and Sasha.

To: Connie Springer, Sasha Blaus

currently lost in the woods with marco. If I die here I leave all my shit 2 u guys.

The responses came quickly.

From: Sasha Blaus

Dibs on your laptop. Also can you request that your full-ride scholarship be transferred upon your death???

From: Connie Springer

what shit?? u were stealing my stuff all last year!

Making a face, Jean locked his phone without replying to them and said to Marco, “Connie and Sasha are being dicks about inheriting everything I own. We're not allowed to die.”

Marco got up off the rock and gave him a quizzical look. “Well, I guess we can just pick a direction and walk until we run into _something_...”

“Better idea than sitting here until we get eaten by wolves,” Jean said.

“There aren't any wolves in this region,” Marco assured him. “Just grizzly bears.”

“God damn it, Marco,” Jean said, his good, city-bred sensibilities deeply upset by the idea of actual real life bears that were not behind glass at a zoo.

“At least there aren't wild horses,” he went on angelically. “Not sure you'd be able to manage.”

“You are not getting laid tonight, Bodt,” Jean said, and soldiered on in a direction that he picked at random.

It was almost ten minutes of walking later that they both remembered that Marco had GPS on his cell phone.

Almost three hours after initially leaving the house, they finally stumbled back into the yard, sweaty, covered in dirt, Marco's shirt torn where a particularly vindictive tree had grabbed it and refused to let go.

“Did you go hiking?” Marco's dad asked when they opened the back door to the house.

“That's...one word for it,” Marco responded.

“We got _lost_ ,” Jean elaborated.

Mr. Bodt just laughed at them.

“I call dibs on shower,” Marco asserted.

“What? I fell down a hill! I am covered in plant matter!” Jean replied.

“We'll just shower together, then!” Marco said exasperatedly.

“Good plan.” Jean looked over at where Mr. Bodt was looking at them with amusement, and quickly added, “In separate bathrooms! But at the same time!”

He took a sip of his juice and quipped, “That sounds like a waste of water.”

Jean fled toward the stairs, Marco laughing after him.

-

They were sitting on the couch, the day after the 'adventure' debacle, and Jean was staring at Marco.

“Do I have something on my face?” he asked, without looking over.

“Yeah,” Jean replied, leaning forward, and poking him in the cheek. “Right here,” he poked elsewhere, “and here,” and a few more places, “and here, too.”

“Those are freckles, Jean.” Marco sighed at him.

“I know. I like them,” he replied, brazen. Though, if Marco had bothered to look over, he would have seen that Jean was blushing a little bit at complimenting him so honestly, even now. “Actually, though,” he went on, “I was thinking about how it's weird how you look so much like both of your parents.”

“There's this crazy thing called genetics,” Marco said, finally looking away from the TV (which was muted—and turned onto the infomercial channel; seriously, what was Marco finding so entertaining?) and over at him.

“Oh, shut up,” Jean said. “I mean, like, _most_ people look more like one parent than the other. I look _exactly_ like my dad. You are pretty much half-and-half, down to the skin tone and everything.”

Jean couldn't help the curl of distaste that had shown on his face when he mentioned his dad, and he knew that Marco was about to turn the discussion on him.

“You look like your dad?” he asked, and Jean sighed in response. He'd called it. Well, now was as good of a sharing time as any.

“I look like the picture of him that my mom refuses to get rid of. I mean, that was from over ten years ago, so he may look completely different, now.”

Marco turned so that he was sitting sideways on the couch facing Jean, and scooted closer to him. “Jean...”

He grimaced. “It was a long time ago. I was, fuck, eight, I think? My dad up and left one day, decided that a family wasn't really what he wanted.” He shrugged. “Mom blamed herself. Once I was old enough to understand, I wondered if it was my fault.”

“Jean...” Marco said again, reaching out to take his hand. Jean let him, but looked up to meet his eyes, old anger flickering up within him.

“I know, now, that it was no one's fault but his own, the bastard.” The bravado fell. “Mom never realized that. She kind of...broke, after that. Too heartbroken to put any real effort into tracking the asshole down. I think she still loves him, to some degree.”

Jean was quiet, and swallowed, enjoying the sensation of Marco's thumb, running gently over the back of his hand. “She can hardly look at me, because I look just like him. Hell—he's the reason I bleach my hair. Yes, you fucking called it, I bleach my fucking hair. But it didn't help. Everything else is still the same.”

Marco leaned in, and pressed a kiss to Jean's tight, unresponsive lips. “It sounds to me,” he said carefully, “Like the only thing that man gave you is his face.”

Jean looked at him, then, and he wasn't sure what to feel. Relief? Catharsis? Validation? Finally, he shook his head, thought, _'fuck it,'_ and kissed his boyfriend first, this time. Dwelling on emotions wasn't something he did, anyway. He'd much rather simply react.

-

“How long have we been dating, now?” Marco asked, one afternoon, as they were walking back from eating a late lunch.

“Why?” Jean asked in a sudden panic, “Is it our anniversary?”

“Uh, no? I don't think so, anyway? I was just thinking about something.”

“Oh,” he replied in relief. “Well...March, April, May, June, July...About four and a half, five months?”

“I've been putting up with you for that long?” Marco joked, bumping Jean with his shoulder. Jean gave him a look and bumped him back, and they playfully shoved each other back and forth on the sidewalk for a while, until Jean lost his balance after sliding off the curb and fell into the street. There were no cars coming, at least, but Jean jumped back up quickly, dusting himself off and making sure no one had been around to see.

“Anyway, what was it you were thinking about?” Jean asked, clearly embarrassed and trying to change the subject from his incredible grace.

Marco thought for a second, wondering if he should come up with a lie, but, heck, the street was deserted, and it was going to come up sooner or later.

“Do you want to try anal?” he asked, and Jean very nearly fell down again.

“Right now?!”

Marco gestured at the quaint shops and houses surrounding them. “Obviously not!”

Jean, bright red, muttered, “This is just. Very sudden.”

“We totally don't have to if it's not something you're interested in,” Marco said quickly, losing momentum due to Jean's reaction.

“I'm not... _not_ interested,” he replied. Marco blinked, and Jean, somehow, turned even redder. “I just don't know how.”

“Neither do I,” Marco admitted, feeling his own blush creep up. Suddenly, inspiration hit him. “But I know at least two people who _do._ ”

“No.”

“But—“

“We are _not_ asking Reiner for sex tips.”

“Why not?”

“There is a whole internet with information on this kind of thing!”

“What if it says to, like, use motor oil as lube?” Marco didn't quite trust the internet ever since he'd failed an important paper in high school due to his online sources being incorrect.

“...You have a point,” Jean admitted, wincing. “Porn?” He suggested.

“Porn sex is not real sex,” Marco replied, making a face. Jean scowled, but nodded in agreement.

“So. We're calling Reiner.”

“I guess so.”

“I don't think he's ever going to let us live this down.”

“Probably not.”

“Do we have to do this?” Jean whined.

“Not if you don't want to,” Marco replied, walking a little faster as the front door to his house came into view.

“No!” Jean insisted. “I want to.”

“Okay then.”

-

Reiner Braun was sitting at his computer desk, idly looking at apartments in Trost, for when they went back for the fall semester. He wasn't particularly invested in it, though, and had signed into Skype, and kept hoping someone would message him.

He got a notification

 **IAmNotARobodt** is online.

He opened back up his messenger window to see if Annie had signed in, yet, since she was probably going to be living with Bertl and him, but she was still offline. He looked through his contacts, and who was online. **Legout—** that was Armin. **ChristasGirlfriend—** Ymir. **FriesBeforeGuys—** That was Sasha. **Springrolls—** Connie (they were probably talking to each other). **Jaegerbombastic—** Eren.

He was about to pick someone at random to bother when he got a new message, from Marco, of all people.

 **IAmNotARobodt:** Hey, Reiner, what are you up to?

He had a feeling there was something behind this message, but he didn't want to assume.

 **BrawnyReindeer:** Oh, u kno, jus chillin wit bertl turtle. U?

Of course, Bertl was being _lame_ and reading a book over in the Reiner's bed instead of entertaining his boyfriend.As if he could sense Reiner's terrible nickname for him, he looked over, but went straight back to his book a second later.

 **IAmNotARobodt:** Jean and I could use your help with something, if you're not busy?

 **BrawnyReindeer:** if u hide the body under a dead dog the feds won't find it

 **IAmNotARobodt:** Why does everyone always assume I killed someone?

 **BrawnyReindeer:** not u, marco. Its jean I worry about

He grinned at how clever he was.

 **IAmNotARobodt:** shut up, dickbutt!!!

Reiner laughed out loud, and replied.

 **BrawnyReindeer:** lol hi jean. So what did u guys need?

He figured this was going to be a pretty in-depth conversation, and his fingers were stiff from training with his punching bag earlier. Without using the appropriate gloves, because he lived his life on the edge. So, he decided to go ahead and go for a video chat so he could just talk at them instead.

A second later, Marco accepted.

The two of them appeared on the computer screen, looking nervous, while the small panel in the corner showed his own face, looking back.

“That's better,” Reiner said, “I am the slowest typer, and my fingers hurt. So, what's up?”

“Um, well,” Jean began, but seemed unable to continue.

Marco simply took a deep breath, inaudible through the speakers but obvious in his posture, and, like someone ripping off a band-aid, said all at once, “How do you do the anal sex?”

Reiner was shocked for a moment, but then he laughed. “You guys haven't, yet?”

“Uh, no?” Marco replied, peeking out from between his fingers.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said. He'd known some guys who never did. Still, he had been asked for instruction, and instruction he would provide. He looked over at his boyfriend. “Bertl, come here! Marco and Jean want to know how to do the frickle-frackle.”

Bertholdt didn't even look up from his novel. “One, I am not going to help you demonstrate. Two, never call it that _ever_ again. Please”

Reiner turned back to the camera and winked at them. He'd get Bertl to help. He knew _all_ his buttons. The mortified expression on Jean's face at the wink was _priceless;_ Reiner almost took a screenshot to show him later.

“Well,” Reiner said, “The most important thing is lube. _Lots of lube._ So much lube. Like, 400 lube. Silicone based, water based doesn't work as well.”

Jean's mortified expression intensified, and Reiner, unable to resist, stealthily hit the key for a screencap.

“Put the lube in the butt, put the lube on the dick, then use more lube.”

There was silence over the webcam, and they just stared back at him.

“You think I'm joking, but I'm not,” Reiner went on. “Okay, so, let me explain how to do the stretching.” He went off into an explanation, secretly enjoying how both of them (but especially Jean) would flinch every time he was particularly graphic, or demonstrated with his hands a little too enthusiastically.

He was most of the way through his explanation of prostate massages when he glanced over, and saw Bertl watching him with almost as much embarrassment as Jean and Marco were.

“What?” He teased him.

“Don't they have the internet for this?” he asked meekly.

“Bertl, you can't trust the internet. It'll probably tell you to use motor oil as lube, or something!” Reiner exclaimed in horror.

Over the webcam, he heard Marco say, “That's what I said!”

“Besides,” Reiner went on, “As the senpai to these young, naïve kouhai, it is my solemn duty to help them through this important event in their lives!”

“Marco is older than you,” Bertl insisted quietly.

“But in this, I am his senpai,” Reiner retorted, gesturing with the bottle of lube that he still held in his hand.

“I think you've been watching too much anime,” Bertholdt said, losing steam.

“Never,” Reiner said lowly, pointing at him with his lube. Blushing, Bertl just put his face back in his book, so close that Reiner was sure it was straining his eyes to make out the words.

Reiner turned back to the camera. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, prostate massages.”

-

Jean and Marco were both irrevocably emotionally scarred by Reiner's lecture on 'frickle-frackling,' as he refused to stop calling it, but neither of them could say that they weren't well-informed, now.

 _Incredibly_ well-informed.

More well-informed than they'd really ever wanted to be.

Neither of them was sure, yet, how he'd coerced Bertl into helping him demonstrate different positions.

Still, after Marco signed off of Skype and they spent almost twenty minutes getting over the shock of everything they had seen on that webcam, they had talked about it some, and decided that it was something they'd both like to try.

Which was how Jean found himself trudging beside Marco on his way to the drugstore, only a few blocks from Marco's house. The fading day was nice, with a brisk breeze distracting from the heat of the summer sun. It was much cooler here, in the shadow of the mountains than it was in the city blankets by smog where Jean had spent every other summer. Tall trees lined the street, and birds called from the branches. Striped chipmunks wandered the sidewalk as confidently as if they were people.

It was a delightful day to be outside.

That wasn't why they were taking their time.

Still, the drugstore inevitably came into view, and they went in, sharing a look that said, as plain as any words, ' _let's do this.'_

They were too embarrassed to wait and look around, but weren't going to ask for help, so they ended up meandering around the badly-labeled store for almost ten minutes before they found what they were looking for.

Then, they dithered for another couple of minutes, because there was an elderly lady in that aisle, so Jean pretended to try on wrist braces while Marco smelled shampoo.

At last, she left, and they furtively, examined the selection. The lube was easy—there was only one option that wasn't water based—but there were _so many_ types of condoms.

“What kind do we need?” Marco asked in confusion.

“I don't know...the regular kind?”

“What brand?”

“Uhh...the cheapest?”

“That somehow seems like a _bad_ idea,” Marco said weakly.

“Ribbed?”

Marco just gave him a look, and Jean shrugged. He'd been joking about that one, anyway.

“Do you think we need to get them pre-lubricated?” Marco asked.

Jean pointed at the huge bottle of lube in the basket he was carrying. “I think we have plenty.”

They stared some more, not making eye contact. At last, another customer began to approach the area, so Jean took initiative, grabbing a box and they skulked toward the front counter.

They did go ahead and get soap, shampoo, conditioner, too, since Jean had been using all of Marco's. And so that they would be buying more than _just_ condoms and lube.

Jean held the handbasket in one of his arms, and Marco held onto his other hand for moral support as they walked up to the only open cash register. Immediately after getting close enough to see the girl behind it, reading a magazine, Marco squeaked and turned back around, going the other way.

“What?” Jean asked.

“Oh god, I knew her in high school,” Marco whispered in a rush.

They did make eye contact then. Jean was a good boyfriend, and there was only one thing that a good boyfriend would do in this situation. He sighed.

“I'll get the stuff. You sneak out.”

Marco's face melted into one of relief.

Taking a calming breath, Jean walked up to the register.

“Oh, hey,” the girl said, looking up from her magazine, as Jean put his stuff up on the counter. She scanned everything nonchalantly and put the items in a bag. Meanwhile, Jean was breaking a sweat from how uncomfortable he was. The last thing she had to scan was the box of condoms.

She put it over the scanner.

“Um, this isn't scanning,” she said, and, of course, Jean had managed to grab the only one without a sticker. “Do you remember how much they cost?” She asked.

“Fuck—no,” he said, since he'd grabbed the box and run.

The cashier met his eyes. “Do you want me to do a price check?”

“No!” he said, a little too quickly. “I mean, I'll run and look, it's no problem,” he amended.

“Okay,” the girl said, shrugging, and grabbing her magazine from the counter. Face flaming, Jean stalked off to find out the price.

For once, he was lucky, and the aisle was empty, so he was able to get the price and go back up front. He told the cashier what it was, and she nodded and rung it up. Jean paid with his debit card and took the bag, meeting Marco outside.

“What took you?” Marco asked, curious, not accusing.

“The god damn condoms wouldn't scan,” he muttered.

“Oh no,” Marco said.

“I think it was more uncomfortable for me than for the cashier...” Jean admitted, since she had seemed _really_ cool with the whole thing.

“I bet she has to deal with that a lot,” Marco agreed.

“Either way,” Jean asserted, “ _All_ stores should have self-checkout. All of them.”

Marco just nodded and they started the trek back to his house, golden tones of sunset falling at they walked, fiery orange and rose.

There was a note on the kitchen counter, from Marco's dad. It announced that he and Mrs. Bodt would be playing cards at a friend's house, and not to wait up for them.

They were alone.

“So, uhh,” Jean said, but Marco's stomach growled, and he laughed.

“Dinner?” Marco said.

They made sandwiches, being too lazy to actually cook anything, and ate them at the kitchen table with a bit of a rush. Jean was a little nervous—not scared, because he was comfortable with Marco, but it was new, and neither of them had done it before.

Jean and Marco finished their sandwiches at almost the same instant, and their eyes fell to the plastic bag sitting on the far end of the table.

“You still up for this?” Jean asked.

“Yeah,” Marco said softly. “We don't have to do it now, though...?”

Jean smirked. “You've never turned down sex before.”

“I'm not saying no!” Marco said defensively, holding up his hand. “I'm just. Nervous.”

Jean let out a breath. “Yeah, me too.”

The ended up agreeing to see how it went, going upstairs and starting out by cuddling and streaming a terrible kung-fu movie on Marco's tablet. It was so terrible that Marco ended up planting a firm kiss on Jean's mouth to shut up his running commentary—which had pretty much been the plan in the first place. The movie became background noise, then nothing, as Marco took a second to stop it and turn his tablet off, putting it in a safe spot.

While he did that, Jean took a moment to take off his shirt, tossing it to the floor. He could see Marco's gaze go over his chest, abdomen, and then back up to his face, and he leaned in. Jean grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling Marco on top of him as he lay backwards, slowly, so he didn't collapse on top of Jean. Marco kissed his mouth, his jaw, his neck, across his chest and shoulders until he was panting with anticipation.

“You wanna?” Marco asked, meeting Jean's eyes.

“Yeah.” He didn't hesitate. Neither of them really into sexy undressing, they just kicked off their pants and boxers, and Marco took off his shirt, so that they were both completely nude. Marco kissed him again, skin to skin now, and got the lube where he had put it on the nightstand. Reiner's voice was thrumming in Jean's ears, and he squirmed uncomfortably at the memory.

“Hey, you okay?” Marco asked.

Jean laughed, and relaxed. “I keep hearing Reiner's voice,” he admitted.

“Oh, god, me too,” Marco said, laughing too. He uncapped the lube, and Jean, not sure if he should turn over or what, just spread his legs a little wider.

Marco had generously coated his fingers, and then he made eye contact with Jean. He looked as nervous as Jean felt, and it made Jean laugh.

“Come on,” he said.

With a deep breath, Marco leaned over Jean, not too far since he didn't have a second arm to hold himself up with, and reached between his legs, Jean shivering as his slick fingers trailing over his inner thighs, and to his entrance. Marco sort of froze there, for a moment, but Jean opened his eyes and made an impatient face at him, and he grimaced apologetically, and slowly slipped his index finger in.

Jean made a face. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was weird, and it took him a minute to get used to the sensation.

“Okay,” he breathed with a nod, and Marco tentatively added the next finger, and, yeah, that was even weirder. Marco gently stretched and scissored his fingers, like Reiner had said to do—god, he needed to stop thinking about Reiner while they were doing this. Jean wasn't sure what was so great about this whole 'anal' thing until Marco crooked his fingertips, and something inside of him caught on fire.

He twitched, gasped out some combination of a swear and Marco's name, and his flagging erection bounced back up against his stomach at the sensation.

He peeked one eye open, and Marco looked entirely too pleased with himself. “Stop smiling and do that again,” Jean said.

Apparently, now that Marco knew what he was looking for he had no trouble finding it, and Jean rejoiced and despaired that he'd found a boyfriend with such long fingers. Finally, after Marco had three fingers in—Jean hadn't even noticed the third—Jean had to tell him to stop.

“Okay, okay, fuck, I'm good,” Jean said.

“Are you sure?” Marco asked.

“I'll put it this way: if you keep at it, I'm not going to last until you put it in me.”

And again, the fucker looked like he'd achieved some great feat, smiling way too angelically for what they were in the middle of doing. Marco removed his fingers, and Jean let out a breath at the sensation.

He sat up, grabbed a condom and opened the plastic wrapping, rolling it onto Marco's cock as his boyfriend sighed at the contact.

“How do you want to do this?” Marco asked.

“Let me ride you,” Jean replied, no filter. Truth be told, it was something he'd been thinking about since _long_ before Marco had had this idea that afternoon. Marco stared at him, not moving a muscle. Shit, he'd broken him.

“Is that a no?” Jean asked.

“What?!” Marco said, finally moving again, “No, no! No!”

“That was three nos,” Jean said with a teasing smile.

“Yes!” Marco corrected himself, blush apparent even in the lamplight. Smirking, Jean leaned up to kiss Marco, and flipped their positions so that Marco was propped up on his pillows against the wall, with Jean straddling his thighs. He kissed him again, and got the lube, squeezing some onto his fingers, and coating Marco's dick.

Suddenly unsure, but wanting, Jean lined his entrance up with Marco's cock, and slowly lowered himself onto it. He winced—not in pain, put getting used to the feeling. It was bigger than his fingers had been. When it was all the way in, he stopped, panting, adjusting.

“Jean,” Marco said, in a high whine.

“Mm,” Jean replied eloquently, in a tone that said ' _hold on._ '

After what felt like a small eternity, Jean breathed out, “Okay.” And he began to move, setting his own pace, at first, but Marco timed his thrusts to Jean's, hitting his prostate often enough to keep Jean panting and letting out breathy moans.

Marco was getting close, he could tell, by the way he bit his lip to keep from crying out, and the way he squeezed Jean's thigh hard enough to bruise.

“Marco,” Jean whimpered, “Touch me.”

His eyes opening, and meeting Jean's for a moment, Marco nodded. He let go of Jean's leg, and pumped his cock in time with their movements, Jean's eyes fluttering closed in pleasure as he groaned.

Marco's thrusting up against him was becoming erratic, and his breathing harder.

“God, Jean, I'm really close,” he said between pants for air, head thrown back against the pillows. Jean could barely reply. Between Marco's hand on him and his dick in Jean's ass, he was in the same place.

“Good,” Jean breathed, “Come with me, Marco.” Marco thrust up a few more times, Jean moving against him, before he climaxed, moaning and gasping, rocking his hips raggedly as he rode out his orgasm. This was enough to send Jean over, coming seconds after Marco, spilling over his hand.

Breathing heavily, he climbed off of Marco, who was unthinkingly wiping his hand on the sheets, while Jean tied off the condom and dropped it in the trash can.

That done, he curled into Marco, laying his head on his bad shoulder and throwing one leg over Marco's.

“That was...kinda really good,” Marco said.

“Yeah,” Jean agreed. He didn't want to do it every night or anything, but, hell, it had been more than just good. And he was sure it would be better once they had a better idea of what they were doing.

“I want you inside me next time,” Marco murmured, seemingly already half-asleep.

“You got it,” Jean promised, around a yawn. He nuzzled into Marco's chest and closed his eyes. It was still early, but he was always sleepy after sex. Besides, if they went to bed at a reasonable hour, he might not have to deal with Marco trying to sleep until noon again. He smiled, and fell asleep like that.

-

Jean woke up the next morning with the realization that his visit was only going to last two more days.

As had become usual, he got up, showered and dressed, had coffee with Marco's mom while deliberately not thinking about the fact that her son's cock had been up his ass the night before (though, admittedly, that part was new), and then went and woke Marco up. Shortly after Marco finished his shower, his phone began chirping its cheery ringtone, and Marco went to answer it.

“Hello,” he answered, and Jean looked up, curious. There was an indistinct voice on the other end.

“Yeah, Jean's still here, and no, we haven't found anywhere to live, yet,” Marco responded.

Seemingly on command, Marco put his phone on speaker, and Reiner's voice came through loudly, excitedly.

“Marco, Jean, we were looking around at listings in the district near the university and Annie found the most _perfect_ place. It's this two-story rental house, four bedrooms, two kitchens, three bathrooms. Sasha and Connie are already in—so we have one more room, and I thought of you guys. Would you be interested?”

Jean looked at Marco, who shrugged. Jean wasn't sure how happy he was about living in a house with seven people, but he and Marco would have their own room, and it couldn't be worse than the dorms. Besides, with the rent split seven ways, it would have to be pretty reasonable. Jean nodded.

“We're interested,” Marco said, “But I think we should talk about it some more?” Marco glanced toward Jean, and he nodded again.

“Sounds good!” Reiner said, “Let me know as soon as you can, alright?”

Marco said something in agreement, and the line went dead.

“Well,” he said with a smile, “That might take care of the living situation next month?”

Jean started. “Holy shit, we _do_ go back to university next month.”

Marco laughed softly. “Did you forget?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Jean admitted, then sobered. “I'm going back to Trost the day after tomorrow.”

Marco frowned. “Yeah...” he said. “I'm gonna miss you.”

Jean smiled weakly. “Hey, I'm still here, now.”

Marco smiled too, his wide and genuine. “You're right. Let's go paint the town red while we still can. Go clubbing, crash parties, get really drunk, you know. The whole nine yards.”

Jean shook his head in amusement. If there was anyone who was the polar opposite of 'painting the town red,'...well, it was probably Armin, but Marco was a close second. There was a reason those two were friends. “And by that, you mean that you want to walk down to the corner store for snacks, right?” Jean asked.

“Yes, please,” Marco replied, bouncing.

However, they were stopped on the way downstairs by Marco's parents, who were both off work that day, and kidnapped for lunch, which neither of them argued with.

They spent the rest of that day, and most of the next one, pretending that Jean wasn't going to be leaving in the morning.

-

Jean had spent the train ride back from Jinae sleeping and thinking (but mostly sleeping). He hadn't gotten a ton of sleep the night before; he and Marco had taken a blanket out into the backyard and talked under the stars until almost four in the morning. His train had left at seven.

Marco's mom _and_ dad had driven them to the station, sweeping Jean up in giant hugs that he wasn't sure how to react to, at first, but he'd returned after a moment.

Marco himself had been last, hugging him for a long time, and kissing him while his parents looked away, “because Jean's a prude,” as Mrs. Bodt, who had never succeeded at getting him to call her Laura, had whispered to her husband.

And, finally, he had boarded his train with his suitcase, after being made to promise that he would come visit again sometime.

Marco's parents had, in two weeks, come to feel more like family to Jean than his own mother had in the past twelve years.

He left the train station, which was conveniently only about two blocks from his mom's apartment, and carried his suitcase, aware that he was a perfect target for mugging and keeping an eye out.

The city smelled thick, and rank. He already missed Jinae.

Jean made it back to his building without incident, and unlocked the door, making eye contact with his mom, who had been at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper and sipping tea.

The setting was different, but it reminded him of his early morning talks with Mrs. Bodt. Maybe. Maybe he should give his mom a chance. He was _tired_ of shutting her out, always being on the defensive.

Jean set his suitcase down inside the door and took a seat across from her.

“How was your trip?” she asked reservedly.

Jean grinned minutely. “It was really great. I didn't actually do a lot, though.”

She sipped her tea. Jean went on. “I, uhh, I lied to you before. I said I was going to see my friend, but, well, he's actually my boyfriend.”

He got a reaction at that, his mom blinking, and setting her newspaper aside. “I didn't know you were seeing anyone?”

Jean looked down, and said, “I, um. I realized while I was gone that I just don't talk to you at all. And I'd like to change that?” He looked over as he said the last part, and was rewarded with the most genuine smile he'd seen cross his mother's face in years.

“I'd like that,” she said, the smile not fading. “So, tell me about him.”

Jean took a breath, not sure where to start. “His name's Marco, and he's. He's really great,” Jean said lamely, still not sure what to actually _say_ about his boyfriend. There was so much. He was smart, and sweet, and thoughtful, and funny, and absolutely _adorable,_ and, fuck, Jean was so in love with him. “I'm sorry,” he said, after a moment, “I just don't know how to describe him.”

“You seem to really like him, and that's enough for me,” his mom said, grinning over the rim of her mug. “I'd like to meet him, sometime.”

Jean froze, and blinked. This had gone better than he had ever expected. “Yeah.” He said, _not_ choking up. “I'd like that, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this monstrosity is officially a series, now. I keep putting in sequel hooks.
> 
> Shoutout to siseja/ullragg on tumblr for the inspiration with the Reiner scene.
> 
> Also. I am in a constant state of overwhelmed at the response I've gotten to this fic; thank you to everyone.
> 
> Last thing. I'm on tumblr as farseerscreed. I'm a gigantic loser dork. Let's be friends.


	3. And Our Minds Fill With Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophomore year begins, and Jean and Marco move into a house with their friends. Shenanigans ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by Hall and Oates, Lemon Jelly, Capital Cities (aka my writing playlist), and, most importantly, my beta [Cloud](http://cloudmonstachopper.tumblr.com), without whom this would be much less quality.
> 
> Title is a line from [Mountain Laurel](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVmIVYYdt-8) by Shearwater.

Jean stared in abject horror, still half in Reiner's truck, one leg on the ground and an open-mouthed frown on his face. He'd seen the pictures, yes, but nothing had prepared him for the reality of seeing the house where he'd be living.

Not that it was overly old, or ill-kept. It was just...painfully tacky. The wood siding was painted a vibrant mint green, and the borders around the windows and roof were a nauseating shade of mauve.

It clashed worse than Connie's favorite Hawaiian shirt. He felt like the color combination was staring into the darkest parts of his soul, an evil, hideously distasteful presence.

“Hey, Kirschstein, you gonna get your boxes or what?” Reiner's voice broke the connection between him and the ugly-as-fuck house.

He jumped down from the high truck and closed the door behind him. “Yeah, I was just...”

“Overwhelming, isn't it?” Reiner said with a gesture at the house. Jean nodded tightly.

“Wait until you see the inside,” Reiner said with an eyebrow wiggle, and Jean's jaw dropped in dismay. They each grabbed one of Jean's boxes from the truck bed, leaving only Jean's suitcase to be carried in; he'd come back for it in a moment. With dread as well as the heavy box weighing down his steps, he approached the front door, which Annie stoically opened when she saw them coming.

“Oh, god,” were Jean's first words upon seeing the inside. The small entry way was painted bright orange, and he could see the walls in the kitchen beyond it, lemon yellow with a vivid and glittery blue mosaic back splash.

“Yep,” was Annie's flatly disapproving reply, closing the door after Reiner, who nudged Jean's back with the box in his arms to get him moving.

He shuffled in a bit more, and set the box down, wanting to have a look around. The house was still mostly empty, since Reiner, Bertl, and Annie had only moved in the day before.

“Wanna look around?” Reiner echoed his thoughts, “The house manages to encompass the entire rainbow.”

“I'm gonna cry,” Jean whimpered.

“You _and_ Bertholdt,” Annie remarked, and Jean couldn't be sure whether or not she was kidding. He made a quick run back outside to get his suitcase, setting it by the boxes in the entry way, and wandered around the house, Reiner following him with commentary.

“Yeah, Bertl, Annie and I have claimed the two downstairs bedrooms,” He said as Jean peeked into each of the bedrooms downstairs. One had walls painted in shades of blue and purple, the other in bubblegum pink and the same orange from the entryway—Reiner said that that one was his and Bertl's.

Other than that, there was the kitchen and what Reiner said was supposed to be a dining room on the first floor, all painted as garishly as the rest of the house.

Jean found the stairs and crept up them with trepidation. He prayed to every deity he'd ever heard of that the bedrooms upstairs would be more tasteful. He wasn't sure he could sleep with neon-painted walls.

The stairs opened into a living room, which already had a large flat screen television mounted to the wall. A housewarming gift from Bertl's parents, Reiner explained. The walls were rose pink and leaf green, which seemed tame in comparison to the rest of the house.

A short hallway opened into two bedrooms. The first room had the walls painted four different colors, all shades of autumn leaves. He grimaced. That was still hella bright for his tastes.

The second made him breathe a sigh of relief. Two opposite walls were a deep cranberry red, and the other two so pale a blue as to almost be white. Yes, this wasn't too bad. He could live with this.

“I want this one,” Jean said as soon as he could speak through the sudden escape from his sensory overload.

“I advise you to check out the bathroom,” Reiner said with a grin, beginning to walk back toward the stairs. Jean swallowed nervously. He didn't like that tone.

He left the room, and went to the only door he hadn't opened yet, which had to go to the bathroom. He opened it and gaped in disgust.

The walls were _actually_ neon pink with an art deco pattern badly stenciled onto them in shiny gold paint.

“Reiner!” Jean called down the stairs.

“Yeah?” he replied, and he could hear him turning around and coming back up the stairs.

“Are we...allowed to repaint?” he asked hopefully.

Reiner snorted. “The owner said we _can,_ but they want it painted back like this when we move out.”

“Fuck me,” Jean muttered, collapsing onto the plush carpet in the hall outside the bathroom, which was, thankfully, an ordinary shade of beige.

Reiner laughed at his plight and began walking away again. After an existential crisis or seven, Jean got up and went to go fetch his things. The boxes and suitcase looked dreadfully small in the room, which wasn't that big to start with. As much as Jean had wanted to move out of the dorms, he's neglected to think about things like buying furniture and appliances and having to pay for shit like toilet paper on a regular basis.

He'd have to find a job on this side of town, as soon as possible. He'd saved up almost everything he'd earned working at the coffee shop over the break, but that wasn't going to last forever. His part of the move in fees for the house had already put a pretty big dent in it.

Still, tacky house and financial worries aside, he felt a bubble of excitement in his stomach. Marco was moving in tomorrow, and then they'd be living together. Going to sleep and waking up in the same bed _every_ night. A small smile crept across his face, but then he covered it up with a scowl at how much of a fucking sap he was.

He shook his head and took his phone out of his pocket, composing a new text.

To: Mom

moved in. house is ugly as hell.

For the past month or so, Jean had been trying to repair his relationship with his mother, and for the most part it was working. It wasn't perfect—a lot of the time they just didn't know what to talk about, but at least they were talking. He hoped that she didn't see his father when she looked at him, anymore.

His phone chimed.

From: Mom

good! Surely it can't be that bad?

He smirked, and went down the stairs and out the front door, standing far enough away that he could capture the house in all its glory. Ugh, he noted, as he snapped the picture. Calling it mint green before had been overly charitable. It was really much more of a puke green.

He attached the picture to a message

To: Mom

Attachments: IMG0217

u sure about that?

He went back in and up to the room he'd be sharing with Marco. Opening one of the large boxes, he unpacked his hangers and started putting his clothes in the closet. His phone chimed again, and he opened the message.

From: Mom

oh my, that's very bright...

He grinned and pocketed his phone again, going back to his task so that he could have all his stuff out of the way for when Marco got there the next day.

-

Marco leaped out of the passenger seat of the small moving van and looked at the house. It was _._ Well. He'd seen worse. And the purple trim was nice.

“Wow,” his dad said, coming around the side of the truck. “That's certainly...loud.”

“I think it'll grow on me,” Marco said with a charitable smile.

The noise of a door opening and slamming startled him back to reality. “Marco!” Jean called, and goodness was his voice nice to hear again!

“Jean!” He called back, and they met each other halfway, embracing tightly, Jean's arms wrapped around Marco's shoulders, his arm around Jean's waist. He held him like that for a long moment, face buried in Jean's neck, but finally let him go.

“What do _you_ think of the paint job?” Marco asked wryly, knowing full well that Jean would hate it.

“It's...it's definitely something,” Jean answered with a nod. “Need help bringing your stuff in?”

“Yes, please!” his dad called over to them, and Marco saw Jean blush, suddenly aware that they'd had an audience the whole time. He held back a laugh. Jean was so much _cuter_ in person than he was over the phone, or skype.

Marco followed Jean over to the truck, and didn't hold back his laugh when Jean tried to shake his dad's hand, and was drawn into a hug, which he returned with the minimum of awkward flailing.

The two of them opened the back of the van and set up the ramp, and Jean made a noise of surprise at how much there was.

“Yeah,” Marco said, “I thought if I brought some of my furniture from home it would be less to buy, here?”

Jean nodded, and bumped his shoulder. “Good thinking.”

It wasn't easy, but over the span of about an hour, they managed to get everything into the house. Upon seeing that there were big items, Reiner had emerged to help, dragging Bertholdt along with him, all of them helping, though Marco mostly helped with the smaller items, nervous about balancing heavy furniture with one arm. Still, between the five of them, they got it done pretty quickly.

It didn't make it any more pleasant, though.

“Moving _sucks,_ ” Jean said, when everything had been transferred from the van to the house. Marco could only make a noise of agreement.

However, he was prettyexcited about living in a house! Sure, all the color was maybe a _little_ much, but he was sure he'd get used to it in no time. Well, maybe not the bathroom. He wasn't sure he'd ever be used to that. At least the bedroom was pleasantly tame.

The bedroom. _Their_ bedroom. Excitement fluttered in his stomach again. He grinned, and got up from where he'd been laying, sprawled out on the floor of the living room.

He'd brought quite a bit of stuff from his parents' house, dresser, bookshelves, a desk, nightstand, kitchen appliances, and some small things. The only thing that he hadn't gotten to bring was the bed, since his parents were going to convert his old room into a guest room.

They'd have to go shopping. He walked into the bedroom, where Jean was laying on the floor in much the same way Marco had been a second ago, except face-down. He laughed, and kicked at him lightly.

“Didn't you say you were going to start arranging all this?”

“Your stuff is heavy,” Jean said, his face muffled by the carpet. “I got tired.”

The dresser and bookshelf had been moved from the middle of the floor to space-saving places along one of the walls, but nothing else had moved.

Marco judged it good enough, and flopped down next to Jean, throwing his arm over him. His dad had gone to find his hotel, expressing the need for a nap after the ten-hour drive and subsequent moving, and Marco didn't begrudge him it a bit. He was beginning to feel a bit sleepy himself. Judging by the slack expression on Jean's otherwise smushed face, he figured that his boyfriend shared that sentiment. Cuddling a little closer, Marco closed his eyes too.

-

Jean sighed, in the early light of morning. The illumination through the window on the far wall was soft and grey, letting him know just how early it was.

He'd been woken up by Connie and Sasha giggling at each other across the hall every time one of them farted.

It had been a week since he'd moved into the house, and just about everything was in order, by that point. There were still boxes everywhere, but the furniture was all moved in. Sasha, despite her faults, had brought an entire living room set with her, couch, loveseat, entertainment system and all. She and Connie had bunk beds in their room. _Bunk beds._ They were absurdly excited about them.

Trying to tune out the sounds of flatulence and mirth, Jean turned onto his side, looking at Marco's sleeping face. His mouth was open and he was drooling. It was cute as hell. Jean smiled. After a while, he thought he might be able to fall back asleep, but one of the idiots across the hall ripped such a loud one that even _Marco_ twitched in his sleep, and the quiet laughter erupted into full hysterics. Mouthing curses and snarling, Jean gave up, and slid out from under the blankets, already missing the softness of their new bed.

Nothing to do but start his day. Quietly, he got a set of clothes and went over to the bathroom, wincing at the onslaught of neon pink when he turned on the light. He took care of his morning routine, and wandered downstairs.

He smelled coffee when he got into the kitchen, and wondered who else was up so early. Either way, it was to his benefit. He got one of the mugs he'd picked up at the thrift shop down the street and poured himself some, adding cream and sugar to his taste.

“Hey,” a voice startled him as he was going to the small table they'd bought for the 'dining room.' It was Annie, dressed in a pair of shorts and a hoodie, her hair still mussed. “You're up early,” she commented.

“Sasha and Connie were...” he started.

“Farting up a storm?” Annie asked, quirking an eyebrow on her otherwise expressionless face. “I heard; their room is right above mine.”

Jean nodded, a little awkward. Annie intimidated him more than he'd like to admit. He shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for her to go away so he could drink his coffee in peace.

“Oh, by the way,” Annie added, and Jean looked back at her, “The owner of the house is coming by today, sometime in the afternoon.” With that, she picked up a banana from the counter and vanished back into her bedroom. Jean finally completed his journey to the table and sat down, sipping his coffee.

Reiner and Annie had been the ones to handle most of the stuff with getting the house in order, and, as such, had been the only ones to meet the landlady. Jean looked at the lavender and teal walls of the 'dining room' and wondered what sort of a terrible person they could be.

-

“Professor Zoe?” Marco exclaimed upon opening the door to admit their landperson.

“Marco!” they said, throwing their arms wide and embracing him. Marco stiffened and had no idea whether or not he should hug his old psychology professor back, but before he could make up his mind, they let go. “You're not my student anymore, call me Hanji.”

They nodded at Reiner and Annie, and walked into the kitchen, setting their car keys down on the counter. Marco was a little thrown for a loop—his old _psychology professor_ owned the house he was living in?

“Is everyone here?” they asked, clapping their hands together.

“Everyone else is upstairs,” Reiner answered, and, without replying, Professor Zoe...um, Hanji, their _landperson_ turned toward the stairs and walked away.

The three of them went to follow, Reiner elbowing Marco in the side. “You took Hanji's class, huh? This has to be weird.”

“A little,” Marco agreed with a weak grin, mounting the stairs. When everyone was in the living room, Marco settled onto the loveseat with Jean, Professor Zoe addressed them all.

“Hi! I'm Hanji! I own this house! I already know Reiner and Annie, and I've had some of you in class, but I thought I should introduce myself and go over the rules.”

No one moved a muscle, so they adjusted their glasses and went on, explaining maintenance policies and rules for pets and guests in their flippant-but-deadly-serious way, just like Marco remembered from class.

When they were done, they clapped their hands together again and asked, “Any questions?”

“Yeah, what's with the paint job?” Jean asked irreverently. Marco grimaced at his forthrightness.

Hanji smiled darkly, wickedly. “I'm so glad you asked, Jean.” They launched into the story behind the house, that it had originally built as a frat house, which explained the house's weird layout, but the frat had gotten a house closer to campus, and Hanji had bought this one to rent out for a bit of extra money. “But the real reason is,” they said with a tone of finality, “A good friend of mine lives next door, and he _hates_ it.”

“You bought this house and painted it in all sorts of eye-searing colors as a practical joke?” Sasha asked for clarification.

Hanji nodded enthusiastically. “Yep, pretty much.”

Jean interjected again, before Marco could clap a hand over his mouth. “But what about the _inside?_ Your friend can't see that!”

Professor Zoe laughed, and answered, “Another excellent question! It's enough that he _knows_ it's painted like this. He doesn't have to see it for it to drive him crazy. He _especially_ hates the upstairs bathroom.”

Sasha's eyes shone with wonder. “I wanna be you when I grow up.”

They high-fived, and Sasha laughed as Jean grumbled something rude under his breath. Hanji stuck around for a few more logistical questions, explaining the escape routes in case of a fire—they were a little concerned with so many people in the house, but ended up being satisfied everyone was responsible. As they were turning to leave, they reminded them. “Remember, if you're more than a week late on your rent, you're automatically signed up for my next experiment.”

Marco paled, remembering all the 'trials' they'd tried to get their freshmen to sign up for the previous semester, for extra credit. Hanji was an experimental psychologist, and terrifyingly excited about how the human mind reacted to stress.

“Is that legal?” he found himself murmuring to Jean, who shrugged.

Having apparently heard him, Hanji continued, “It's in your lease, so you've all already agreed to it! Bye-bye!” And with that, they sashayed down the stairs and out of sight.

They all sat in the silence that accompanies dread for a long moment, until Connie's stomach gave a loud rumble, breaking the silence and causing a round of laughter from everyone.

-

Classes started the next Monday, and Marco's first lecture started at the same time as Jean's, Reiner's and Sasha's. The others were still asleep, just like Marco wished he was. He wasn't digging this 'morning classes' thing, but it was the only time this particular course was offered, so he'd allowed Jean to drag him out from under the covers before the sun was even up, and into the shower, where he'd nodded off at least twice, and would have fallen and probably broken something if Jean hadn't been in there with him to catch him.

He grinned slightly, grabbing his backpack and shouldering it after finishing a cereal bar, and the grin turned into a yawn. It had been only a week and a half, but this cohabitation thing was working out better than he'd hoped.

He was a little bit afraid that Jean was getting annoyed with taking care of him in the mornings, but Jean after ten PM was as bad as Marco before ten AM, so he figured it evened out. He hadn't complained, at any rate, and Jean wasn't one for keeping silent when he could complain about something.

He met up with the other three in the entry way, bumping shoulders with Jean affectionately and leaving the house, letting Reiner lock the door back. He heard a noise, and turned his head. The neighbor was also locking his door behind him, a short man with dark hair who looked like he could be anywhere from twenty to forty. Absently, he wondered if this was Professor Zoe's friend.

As soon as he had the thought, Sasha called to the man, waving enthusiastically. “Dr. Levi!”

The man turned to face her, expression cold as ice, and began unlocking his door, getting it halfway open before Sasha made it over to his door and clapped him on the shoulder. Marco withered from the way the man glared at her hand.

“Don't fucking touch me,” he said, brushing it off and trying to go back into his house. Sasha, unfazed, said, “Don't be that way! You were the best philosophy professor I've ever had!”

Marco, still frozen in horror, could only watch the scene unfurl. He had a feeling he was about to watch his friend get murdered.

Reiner saved the day. “Hey, we should get across the street, the bus is coming!” he said.

Sasha, distracted, looked away, still speaking. “Hey, are you the friend Hanji mentioned?” she asked, but the neighbor slammed the door in her face. Nonchalant, she jogged back over to them, and they crossed the street, joining the small crowd at the bus stop. As the tram approached, They were all jostled forward, and Marco had to catch onto Jean's arm to keep from falling over at one point.

“Hey, watch it,” Jean said, not even a second later, and Marco reflexively let go, even though he could tell Jean wasn't talking to him. He peered around his boyfriend to see what was going on and saw...Eren.

“The fuck are you doing here, Kirschstein?” Eren said in reply.

“I live here,” Jean snapped, making a short gesture toward the house. “The fuck are _you_ doing here, _Jaeger?_ ”

“ _I_ live _here_!” he replied, flailing at the apartment complex behind them, across the street from the house. Marco groaned inwardly. _Oh no._ He was never going to hear the end of this.

Luckily, their heated conversation was cut off as the bus pulled up to the curb, and Marco steered Jean to a seat in the back, with Eren going toward the front. It was too early for all this, he thought, sighing imperceptibly.

Seated near the back, Marco ruffled Jean's hair, caressing his scalp and the back of his neck until his hackles lowered. He knew full well that at least half of Jean's reaction to Eren was for show, but on the other hand, Eren wasn't being any more mature about the whole rivalry thing, so he didn't scold him for it. This time.

He knew Jean was calm when he tilted his head into Marco's shoulder, not quite nuzzling into his touch. Marco smiled, and then lowered his arm, not uncomfortable with public displays of affection to the same degree as Jean, but a little embarrassed nonetheless. The bus was almost packed.

“That guy next door? Jean said after a moment, and Marco replied with a ' _hm?'_

“Sasha called him Dr. Levi, right?”

“I think that's what she said, yeah,” Marco agreed.

“Oh, god,” Jean said with a groan of dread, and Marco made another questioning noise.

“I think he's my philosophy professor.”

“Maybe he was too distracted by Sasha to notice you,” Marco said sympathetically. The short neighbor man had seemed...a little frightening.

“I can only hope,” Jean said, sinking down a little more in the seat. Marco patted his knee sympathetically.

It was a relatively short ride to campus, and where the bus dropped them off they all milled about for a few moments, discussing when they got out of class and possibly lunch meet-ups. The whole time, Jean and Eren were like two angry cats offended by the presence of the other, and Marco rolled his eyes at them, hoping Jean would settle back into seeing Eren on a regular basis again and calm down.

When everything was sorted out, they all dispersed, heading to their lectures.

Marco looked up at the tall oak trees and the long shadows of morning, stretching across the quad, and smiled softly to himself. He was happy to be back in Trost, and even happy to be back at the university.

He passed the turn to go to his old dorm, and his smile grew wider. After all, this place held a lot of good memories for him.

-

Jean sat down in his communications lecture, toward the back. It was one of those huge lecture halls, more of a theater than a classroom, so the professor would never notice if he were to take a nap or spend the entire lecture doodling or whatever. Yeah, he was really concerned about his grades and his scholarship, but this was a class on _communication._ He knew how to _communicate._ Jean Kirschstein was a _master communicator._

Just as he had the thought, kicking his legs up onto the seat in front of him and closing his eyes, he heard a voice.

“Well, look who we have here.”

“Ymir,” Jean said without opening his eyes.

“That's right, Kirschstein. Let us in and stop hogging the whole row,” she demanded, and Jean, frowning, opened his eyed and sat up in his seat like an adult. Ymir was there, in all her intimidating glory, decked out in plaid button-up and cargo shorts. Christa, a step behind her, smiled kindly when Jean met her eyes and waved. She was wearing a white-and-yellow sundress.

He blushed a little upon seeing Christa, and let them by so that Ymir wouldn't see. It wasn't that he _liked_ her, and he would never cheat on Marco, but there was something so _good_ about that girl that he always felt a little bit flustered around her.

“You're taking communications this semester, too, Jean?” she asked sweetly, around Ymir who was sitting between them.

If anyone else besides her or Marco, maybe, had asked him such an obvious question, he would have responded with sarcasm. As it was, he simply said, “Yeah.”

“It's so he can finally learn to talk to people,” Ymir added, throwing her arms around both of them, but only pulling her girlfriend close to her. Jean ducked away from the contact and threw her a nasty look.

“I am _great_ at talking to people!”

Ymir leveled him with a dark stare, and he fidgeted under it. “Are you sure?” She asked, finally.

Jean, unnerved by the prolonged eye contact, couldn't think of an appropriately biting and witty response in time.

Ymir smirked. “Case in point.”

“Oh, come on, Miri, be nice,” Christa said, grabbing her girlfriend's hand, and Jean wondered if he and Marco were ever that disgustingly affectionate in public.

“Miri?” Jean asked, and it was his turn to smirk.

He got the privilege of seeing Ymir blush, and she muttered darkly, “You ever call me that, and they'll never find your body.”

Christa only laughed softly at the threat, and Jean wondered if he'd overestimated her sweetness.

Abruptly, the lights overhead dimmed and the professor's presentation started powering up on the projector at the front of the lecture hall.

“Before class starts,” Christa said quickly, in a more hushed voice, “I wanted to ask. If you have free time after this, you should come to lunch with us!”

Ymir looked a little less pleased at the invitation, but Christa looked so earnest that Jean found himself nodding, and her smile in response was dazzling. He did have the time, after all.

Class was, predictably, terrible. The professor seemed to be a complete narcissist, spending the first thirty minutes of the lecture introducing himself, his family, his career, and his friends via slide show.

Jean kept trying to go to sleep but Ymir elbowed him in the ribs every time he closed his eyes. He was sure he'd have a bruise.

Giving up on napping, he pulled out his phone.

To: Marco PoloBodt

uuugggghhhhhhhh

A moment later, his phone chimed its text alert, making everyone in the area glare at him, and the professor pause his explanation of the required textbook. With a look of dark glee, Ymir elbowed him in the ribs _again,_ and Jean sank further into his seat, silencing his phone before checking the message.

From: Marco PoloBodt

Not enjoying your first lecture, I take it?

He replied.

To: Marco PoloBodt

communications is the actual worst. Ymir is not making it ne better. She and christa r in here too.

He looked at the presentation for as long as it took his phone to vibrate, indicating Marco's reply.

From: Marco PoloBodt

You should invite them to lunch!! Where's your class? I'll meet you outside since mine is already over.

He rolled his eyes. Marco and Christa were, indeed, two chips off the same block.

To: Marco PoloBodt

in the maria bldg, 3rd floor. And ur class is already over???

The reply came quickly.

From: Marco PoloBodt

On my way. Yeah, she just handed out the syllabus, gave us a reading assignment, and left.

Jean looked over at the professor, who was _still_ droning on, and composed his text.

To: Marco PoloBodt

UUUUGGGGHHHHHH

He waited less than patiently as the professor took the _entire_ class time, and seriously, who did that on the first day? When the presentation went off, Jean was out of his seat and out the door before most of the others realized class was over. He felt a little bad when he heard Christa asking him to wait for them, but he didn't slow down.

He found Marco in the hall outside the door, and his bad mood vanished at the sight of his freckled features, and the smile that was thrown his way. He half-jogged over and bumped shoulders with him, smiling back.

“You made it,” Marco said wryly. “I knew you could pull through.”

“Just barely,” Jean replied. “It was a close call.”

A moment later, they were joined by Ymir, with Christa close on her heels. Ymir punched Jean in the ribs, in the same place she'd elbowed them all through class.

“You ditched us!” she exclaimed as he doubled over in pain.

“Jean!” Marco cried, and placed his hand on his back soothingly.

“And after Christa was kind enough to invite you to lunch,” Ymir said, and Jean used the wall to push himself back upright.

“I didn't go far,” he defended himself. The small smirk on Ymir's face let him know that she wasn't actually that upset—she had really just wanted to beat him up a little. It was how she showed affection to anyone who _wasn't_ Christa.

“What was that about lunch?” Marco asked, addressing the question to Christa.

“Oh! Miri and I were going to get something to eat after this! You should come with us!”

“How nice!” Marco replied, equally smiley. “I was trying to get Jean to invite you two to eat lunch with us!”

Christa _bounced_. “It'll be like a—“ she began, and then, in unison, Marco joined in, “Double date!”

Jean and Ymir groaned as their respective significant others positively radiated. Christa brought out the _bounce_ in Marco.

But then Marco smiled at him, and, well, surely it couldn't be too bad.

“You're hella whipped,” Ymir leaned over and whispered to him.

“Oh, look who's talking,” he grumbled back.

“Proud of it,” she answered, beaming at Christa, who was animatedly talking to Marco, deciding where they should eat.

Jean wasn't feeling picky that day, so he stayed out of it, following as they walked to the stairwell, to the ground floor, and out into the bright summer sun. In the end, Christa had suggested a new sushi bar that had opened a few blocks from campus, and Marco had agreed.

On the walk there, Jean saw Ymir take her girlfriend's hand, and look over at him with a challenging expression. Not to be outdone, he looked over to take Marco's hand only to see that he was holding his water bottle. And he didn't exactly have a hand to spare. So Jean just bumped his shoulder again, smiling softly. Hand holding didn't matter. He wouldn't trade Marco for anyone.

For most of the walk to the restaurant, Christa talked about the trip she and Ymir had taken over the summer, with Ymir interjecting alternative perspectives or missed details. They had taken Christa's old truck and driven all the way out to the coast, sleeping in the bed under the stars on the way there and back—luckily, it hadn't rained—and camping on the beach.

Marco seemed enthralled by the idea, and Jean wondered if he shouldn't try to put together something like that for the two of them, before he remembered that neither of them could drive, and plane tickets were a bit more expensive than he could shell out for at will. Hm. He'd have to come up with something.

At the restaurant, they were seated in an abnormally tiny booth, leaving Jean's leg pressed against Marco's. He would have held his hand under the table then, but Marco needed his to flip through the menu, so he settled for resting it on his thigh.

The waitress came by to take their drink orders, and when she left, Ymir asked, “So, you guys are living in a house with a few of the others, right?”

“Yeah,” Jean answered, since Marco was still engrossed in the menu.

“I think you know what that means,” she said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Pray tell,” Jean asked, voice flat with sarcasm.

“You _have_ to throw a housewarming party.”

“ _Have_ to?” Jean echoed, making a face.

Ymir nodded sagely, and Christa did, too. “It's pretty much the law.”

Marco closed his menu and looked up. “I think it would be fun,” he said.

Jean sighed. “I'll talk to the others about it.”

Ymir smirked at him and motioned a whip cracking, sound effects and all. Jean just rolled his eyes.

Marco was right, though. A party _could_ be fun.

As long as Jaeger wasn't invited.

-

Marco had been surprised that all seven residents of the house had agreed to the party. Connie, Sasha, and Reiner had enthusiastically responded when Jean had brought it up, Bertl had nodded a little less certainly, and only Annie had taken some convincing, though she'd come around when it had been established that her bedroom would be off-limits.

He dried off his plate from his snack and put it back up in the cabinet before walking up the stairs and into the bedroom he shared with Jean, feeling the now-familiar surge of warmth. Jean was sitting at the desk, shirtless, hunched over his laptop. Marco couldn't see his face, but his whole demeanor was scowling. He smiled at the sight.

“What happened?” He asked, and Jean whirled in the spinny chair.

“Jaeger's gonna be here tonight.”

He motioned Marco over to look at the screen of the laptop, where he had the page for the party's facebook event pulled up.

Marco looked over it, his fingers cupping his chin thoughtfully. Finally, he spoke. “You liked your own comment, you dork.”

Jean ducked, blushing. “It _was_ a great comment.”

Marco ruffled his hair, and let his fingers trail down his neck before leaning over him and saying lowly into his ear. “Also, don't make promises you don't plan on keeping.” He watched Jean's ears go pink, and nipped at one of them playfully.

In response, Jean leaped out of the chair, and backed Marco into the nearby wall, chest-to-chest. He smirked.

“And what made you think that I wasn't planning on keeping it?” His smile was wide, teasing, but his fingers were creeping under his shirt, across his hipbones, and through the thin trail of hair that led down from his belly button. Marco swallowed, feeling the temperature in the room rising. Even after weeks of as much sex as he wanted, he was _always_ up for more.

He took the side of Jean's face in his hand and tilted it up, leaning in for a kiss. With a sigh, Jean closed his eyes and pressed even closer, settling his hands on Marco's hips. He let Marco set the pace, slow and intense, deep.

“Hey, do you wanna come with us to the store for—oh, hey, I see you're busy,” Reiner said, and Marco opened his eyes blearily while Jean turned and glared.

“In my defense, you _did_ leave the door standing open,” he said, not leaving, leaning against the door frame and folding his arms over his chest with a smirk. “Anyway, we're going to buy snacks and stuff before everyone starts getting here, wanna join?”

Jean turned back to Marco, finally taking a step away from him, and Marco shrugged. There was always later, and the mood was kind of gone.

Jean shrugged, and muttered, “Let me put a shirt on,” in Reiner's general direction. Marco composed himself, straightening his shirt and pulling his shorts so they sat higher on his hips while Jean picked his discarded T shirt up from the bed and slipped it on. Reiner watched the whole thing with amusement, not leaving the doorway.

When they were both presentable, Reiner led them down the stairs, Marco taking up the rear.

“Is it just us?” he asked, when he saw that no one else was waiting downstairs.

“Us and Bertl.” Reiner answered, “I have him cooling down the truck.”

He nodded and followed Reiner out the door, letting him lock it back. He and Jean climbed into the cramped backseat of the truck, squishing together out of necessity and also for safety, since the backseat didn't have any seatbelts.

On top of that, Reiner drove like a bat out of hell.

Marco wasn't saying he was having flashbacks to the accident, since he honestly couldn’t remember most of it, but if he _could_ remember it, he'd probably be having flashbacks.

However unlikely he believed it to be, or how many crescent-shaped indents he left in Jean's arm, they made it to the grocery store in one piece. Marco's feet his the asphalt of the parking lot and his knees went weak, his arm reaching out to grip the edge of the truck's bed for support.

“Aww, come on, it wasn't _that_ bad!” Reiner insisted, hopping down from the driver's seat.

Bertl came around the front and quietly asserted, “It kind of was, though.”

Reiner put his hand over his heart. “I _trusted you_ to have my back!”

He ducked his head and shrugged and Jean shifted impatiently. As a herd, they walked into the store, Bertl ducking aside to grab a cart.

“Let's split up,” Reiner suggested while they were still by the carts. “Bertl turtle and I will get the snacks; you two get the beverages because guess who has one thumb and can legally purchase the alcohol.”

“Is it me?” Marco asked flatly, turning his head since Reiner had spoken from his blind side, unable to keep a hint of a smile off his face.

“You got it,” Reiner pointed both index fingers at him, and Bertl continued to look pale and uncomfortable—whether at the reference to Marco's disabilities or at Reiner's truly absurd nickname for him, he wasn't sure.

Either way, Jean was grabbing a cart of his own and saying, “Anyway, the others are planning on splitting the cost for this with us, right?”

Reiner pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket. “They paid up front.”

Seemingly satisfied, Jean nodded, and began steering away from them without a backwards glance. Torn, Marco gave Bertl and Reiner an apologetic grin and jogged after his boyfriend.

“Wait up,” he said when he was a few steps away, and Jean obligingly halted for him. When he had caught up, they started walking, at a slower pace this time.

The booze was all the way in the back of the store, and when they turned the corner a familiar voice hailed them.

“Look who it is!”

Marco looked over and a wide smile crossed his face at the sight of hair like honey and cinnamon and an equally bright smile looking back at him.

“Petra?” Jean asked, and she waved. Marco looked past her slight form at the three taller men with her and recognized another one of Jean's old RAs, too.

“Who else?” she asked, and gestured at the wall of alcohol. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“Getting booze for the party,” Jean answered.

“No way!” Petra's tall male friend, the dark haired one, replied, “us too!”

“You're coming to the party?” Marco couldn't help but ask.

“Yeah!” Petra said with a smile. “Eren invited us.”

“Well,” said Jean's other old RA, whose name slipped Marco's mind, “He invited _me,_ and I graciously invited you three.”

“You wouldn't shut up about it in our living room, Oluo,” said the other unfamiliar male, the blond.

Jean grumbled under his breath. “ _Eren_ 's been inviting people to the party? That shitty little brat!” Marco didn't mind Petra and her friends coming, but he _did_ wonder exactly how many people _were_ going to be there tonight.

“Anyway,” said the other RA—Oluo, his name was, “Who's buying? I'm pretty sure you're not twenty-one yet, Kirschstein.”

“I'm not, you hideous nipple,” Jean replied, straight faced and Marco bit in a laugh at the insult. “Marco is.” He raised an eyebrow and went on. “That won't be an _issue,_ will it?” Marco tensed, suddenly aware that what he was doing _was_ actually very illegal.

Oluo shrugged, and said, “Not my resident, not my problem. I'm not even an RA anymore, so fuck you.” He turned to the beer selection and Marco could hear him muttering, “ _Hideous nipple._ ”

Marco smiled and shook his head, and caught Petra doing the same thing, and they both laughed softly.

Jean and Marco deliberated for a few minutes. There were _so many_ choices, and Marco wasn't much of a beer drinker, given the choice between that and literally any other alcoholic beverage.It was almost as stressful as buying condoms.

Finally, Jean was reaching for a case of cheap dark beer and a voice sounded, uncomfortably close to Marco's bad ear.

“No, not that one. That one's shit.”

Marco jumped whirling to see who it was, and Jean jerked back from the beer.

“Oh?” Jean said, quirking an eyebrow, as Marco replied, “Do you have suggestions?”

The grin on Petra's blond friend's face grew eerily wide. “ _Let me show you,_ ” he said, steering them both toward the other end of the aisle.

“Come on, Erd,” the dark haired one said, “They don't wanna hear about your IPAs.”

“Sure they do, Gunther,” he replied, unabashed.

“We really don't, though,” Jean grumped.

“You dirty hipster,” Gunther replied, shaking his head, and the blond—Erd, released them and went to elbow his friend dramatically, so hard that he doubled over. They continued arguing in what _sounded_ like a friendly manner, though Marco couldn't be sure. However, he missed the specifics of the fight since Petra was waving him over.

He caught Jean's sleeve and pulled him toward her.

“Here,” she said, gesturing at a case of beer that wasn't too pricey. “This one's good, and even Erd will approve.”

Marco smiled and nodded. Jean reached into the cooler and hefted the case. “Thank you,” he said, “For being _actually_ helpful.”

Petra smiled at the commotion that was still going on. A bit farther away, Oluo was watching with a grin. “They mean well. Anyway, see you at the party tonight!”

“You know how to get there?” Marco asked.

“It's the house right next to Levi's, right? The one Hanji owns?”

“Uh, yes, but how did you...”

“I'm his TA. Well, we all are, sort of. He's our adviser, you know, since we're all grad students.” she answered, gesturing at the other three. “Jean's probably noticed us hovering in the lecture hall from time to time.”

“You know, I did wonder about that,” he said, with a tone that implied that he hadn't wondered enough to ask. “Anyway,” he said, taking a step away, “Eight o'clock.”

“Eight o'clock,” she repeated cheerily, waving. Marco waved back, and hearing the clang of Jean dropping the case of beer in the basket, he turned to follow.

-

There were a lot more people at the party than Marco had expected. It seemed that Connie had invited literally anyone who he had spoken to for more than two minutes, and then _they_ had brought friends. Marco had mentioned the party to a couple of acquaintances in his history lecture and _they_ had shown up too—not that that was a bad thing; Thomas and Mina were very nice people.

But, still, _wow,_ was having this many people in his living space was weird and a little uncomfortable. He hovered in the corner by the stereo that was pumping out a mix of dance music and classic rock (Reiner's iPod) and waited until he saw a familiar two-toned undercut weaving through the people with drinks. Jean made it over to where Marco was and made an exasperated expression before holding out a plastic cup with an unknown orangey liquid in it to him, keeping an open beer for himself. Marco must have made a face at it because he explained, having to yell to be heard over the speaker, right next to them.

“Someone made punch. I remember you not liking beer so I got you that instead.” He shrugged, and took a swig from the bottle in his hand.

Marco brightened, not missing Jean's half-grin when he did, inwardly touched that Jean had remembered that—he had mentioned it maybe once? Also, that he wouldn't have to drink beer. He took a sip from the cup and nearly coughed. Whoever made the punch had to have dumped one of the economy-sized things of vodka into it. Damn.

“Do you wanna move away from the speakers?” Marco asked after a moment, and Jean nodded. They began crossing the room, but got interrupted.

“Hey, I haven't seen you in, like, a month!” a female voice that somehow reminded Marco of a lazy cat called, on his blind side so he had to turn to see her. Curly ash blonde hair and a wide grin greeted him.

“Has it really been that long?” Jean drawled sarcastically, and moved to allow Marco to move into the conversation.

“Is this your boy?” she asked, and Jean nodded.

The girl looked him up and down a few times and finally said, “I thought you'd be taller.”

“Uh,” Marco said intelligently, “Sorry?” She just laughed at his answer.

“Anyway,” she went on, turning back to Jean, “I never imagined you living somewhere so...colorful.”

“Trust me, I didn't either,” he said with a sigh, and Marco bit back a laugh at that. Jean had made it more than clear how much he disliked the house's...vibrant atmosphere. At every opportunity.

She smirked, her grin growing even wider, and she said with an air of finality, “Well, I'll catch up with you boys later. I need another drink.” She walked toward the stairs, swaying a little already in her high-heeled boots and waggled her fingers at them.

Marco threw Jean a questioning look once she was gone.

“Hitch,” he answered. “Old coworker from the coffee shop. Best enjoyed in small doses.”

Marco nodded, acknowledging the answer, and took a long gulp of his punch, having temporarily forgotten how much vodka was in it and coughing at the burn. Jean smirked at him. Marco blushed, and, to cover it up, pointed at where a familiar pair was coming up the stairs. “Look, Christa and Ymir made it.”

“This party is way less lame than I expected,” Ymir said by way of greeting, raising her voice over the music. Christa just smiled, the flush in her cheeks and the way she leaned against her girlfriend letting Marco know that she had probably already had a few.

“Well of course,” Jean said with an eye roll, pulling Marco to his side in some sort of peacocking exercise. Marco just grinned and allowed it, enjoying the contact and the arm around his waist. “ _I_ am here.”

Ymir actually doubled over with laughter at Jean's boast, and Marco could sense his boyfriend's displeasure, so he nudged him with the stub of his bad arm and said, “It's okay. I think you're cool.”

“Not helping, Marco,” Jean grumbled into the mouth of his beer before tilting it up and draining half the remaining amber liquid in one go.

“We came up here for a reason,” Christa reminded Ymir, who was _still_ shaking with mirth.

“Oh yeah!” She said, straightening up. “Eren was looking for you.”

“For me?” Jean asked, still clearly nursing a bruised ego.

“Something about doing shots,” Christa clarified, only slurring the words a little bit, “And needing to have someone to drink under the table.”

“Oh he is _on,_ ” Jean said, releasing Marco with a fury. Marco, himself, blanched at the idea.

“Are you sure that's a good idea?”

“Come on, Marco,” Jean said flippantly, “Can you really imagine _Jaeger_ holding his liquor well?”

“Well, no,” he conceded, “But neither do you.”

Jean pouted again, but only for a second. “I'm gonna do it.”

Marco sighed. “Whatever you want, dear.” Christa was giggling at the exchange, muttering something about them being 'cute' under her breath, and Ymir looked generally impatient and disgusted.

Jean led the way as they wove through the people who were inexplicably hanging out on the stairs, through the dining room, where Reiner and Bertholdt, how looked surprisingly comfortable and, therefore, likely quite drunk, were playing beer pong against Petra and her dark-haired friend, Gunther. There was a small crowd watching, including Mina and Thomas, who paused to wave at Marco. The room opened up into the kitchen, where Eren was standing next to a row of shots already poured.

“Alright!” he exclaimed when they were in view. “Kirschstein's here!”

“You're going down, Jaeger.”

“You wanna bet?” Eren replied with a feisty grin.

“What are the stakes?” Jean replied with the same excitement.

Eren thought for a moment, and replied, “Philosophy notes for the next month.”

“Deal,” Jean answered with no hesitation, and they aggressively shook hands. Marco could see that their knuckles were white from how hard they were squeezing.

A moment later, they stood on opposite sides of the kitchen island, a line of shots in front of each of them. A group of people had gathered to watch, including Jean's old coworker, a nervous-looking Armin and a disapproving Mikasa. Marco wiggled into the crowd next to her and watched the proceedings with resignation. And maybe a _touch_ of amusement. Connie and Sasha rushed over and began cheering loudly for both Jean and Eren.

The two clinked the cups together, tapped them on the counter, and then downed them. Jean coughed at the liquor's burn and Eren made a face. Jean looked over at Marco, and he sighed, smiling an indulgent smile at him. The second shot went down much the same way as the first, but they started to slow down around the third. Eren ended up having to take it in two drinks, and everyone watching booed him.

There were two more shots in each of their lines, and Marco could see Jean eyeing his dubiously. He wanted to say something about there being no shame in quitting while he was ahead, but he knew that his hypercompetitive boyfriend would just take it as a challenge.

Jean and Eren looked at each other, eyes narrowed and, in sync, reached for their fourth shots, weakly clinking, tapping and downing. The defeat in both of their postures was obvious.

“I give, dude,” Jean said.

“Nah, man, I can't do any more either,” Eren replied, looking at the remaining shot with disgust and faint nausea.

From beside him, Marco heard Mikasa sigh. “Don't waste the liquor,” she said.

Both of them looked at her in anguish. Purposefully, she sat her bottle on the counter looked Eren in the eyes as she downed both shots in one breath. Then she picked up her beer and chugged the remainder of that, too.

Jean was awestruck, and Eren was left whimpering, “I am weak; my drinking game is weak.”

Marco giggled and tried to take a sip of his punch, only to discover that his cup was empty. Damn, it had been a big cup, too. He was probably going to be feeling that before too long. He took a step forward to get to Jean, and force a snack and some water into him before all those shots hit him, and the room lurched under his feet.

Or...now.

Either way, he continued on with his mission. His empty cup went on the counter and his arm went around Jean's waist. Marco may have been a little tipsy from his cup of _incredibly_ strong punch but he hadn't just had four shots in a few minutes.

“Jean, you need to drink some water,” he said.

“Are you drunk?” he asked in reply.

“A little,” Marco replied, “That punch was...really very alcohol-y. But that's not the point. Water.”

Jean nodded, and let Marco pick up his old cup, rinse it out in the kitchen sink, and then refill it with cold water from the fridge for him. He downed the whole thing, seemingly happy to get the taste of the tequila out of his mouth.

Unrelenting, Marco filled it up again, this time drinking a little bit himself before handing it off to Jean.

“Okay, now food,” Marco said, steering Jean toward the snack table in the dining room.

“Yes, mom,” Jean said, but it was affectionate, so Marco just bumped him, harder than he thought, causing them both to stumble into a wall, the water in the cup sloshing over Jean's hand, but they were both laughing.

The game of beer pong was still going on and Reiner and Bertl were being absolutely owned. Not far away, by the snack table, Petra's blond friend Erd was tossing pieces of popcorn at Oluo's open mouth, and he was proving to be spectacularly incapable of catching them. They walked over just in time to see him bit his tongue hard enough to let out a stream of obscenities.

“Eat,” Marco commanded, and Jean gave him a tolerant half smile. Obediently, he grabbed a cookie and took a bite out of it.

“Good,” Marco said, and, making up his mind, continued, “I'm gonna get another drink.”

“What? Are you sure?” Jean asked.

“Yes,” Marco said resolutely. “Those shots are about to hit you like a ton of bricks and then you'll be more drunk than me and that's not fun at all.” Jean laughed at him and took another bite of his cookie. Marco went back to the kitchen and the now almost-empty punchbowl, filling up a new cup. He took a sip. It didn't taste as strong, now. _Good._

He wandered back to Jean, and in the few minutes he'd been gone, Bertl and Reiner had completely lost their game, and the remaining cups of beer were being passed out in celebration. He noted, without too much disapproval, that Jean had ended up with one.

When the second cup of vodka and punch hit Marco, everything went a little hazy. He remembered going upstairs and trying to convince Jean to dance with him, only managing to do so when they had spotted Ymir and Christa getting their bump and grind on, and Ymir had shot Jean a challenging look.

It was all a little fuzzy but he did remember that Jean's moves were _terrible._ That was okay. He could teach him.

He also remembered a game of truth or dare that had quickly devolved into 'truth or asking your friends the most uncomfortable questions they could think of.' Once Marco had had to answer which dinosaur he would have sex with, if he had to have sex with a dinosaur, he'd given up on the seriousness of the game. Jean pointedly asked Annie which two people in the room she would have a threesome with, and she just glared in return.

As the night went on, the people that didn't know them well left earlier, their closer friends staying until the small hours of the morning. Petra and her friends said goodbye, as did Mina and Thomas, Hitch, and an uncomfortable number of people Marco didn't know. The party calmed down considerably. Everyone who was left had crowded into the living room, singing along to a terrible eighties dance hit. Eren and Connie were dancing at each other. Marco smiled; their moves weren't any better than Jean's.

Jean himself had, indeed, been hit like a ton of bricks by all the alcohol he'd consumed. He was _such_ a lightweight. He'd been fine while they'd been walking around to talk to everyone, and when he'd been coerced into dancing, but as soon as he'd sat down to play the awkward questions game, Marco could see him getting sleepier and sleepier. As it was, now, Marco was sitting on one end of the couch, Jean in his lap like a half-awake and very drunk cat.

“You guys are so gay,” Ymir said from the other end of the couch, like Chista wasn't equally cuddled up to her—though considerably more awake.

Jean made a noise that might have been, “Fuck off,” but his voice was muffled by Marco's neck.

Marco saw the bright flash of a camera getting ready to take a picture, so he instinctively ducked his head, hiding the bad side of his face, a remnant of self-consciousness and vanity from years past.

“Aww, come on,” Sasha said, holding up her camera phone with disappointment. “You guys are hella cute and you're not even gonna let me immortalize the moment?”

Shyly, Marco looked up and smiled. Jean didn't move, still snuggled into his chest. The flash went off and the picture was snapped.

“How'd it turn out?” Marco asked. Sasha laughed. “It's really cute...Jean!” She made an exasperated sigh and showed him the picture, and Marco laughed too, seeing where he was flipping off the camera. Somehow it made the picture even better.

After that, she went to join Connie and Eren in their terrible dancing and singing, Reiner joining in too, from his spot on the floor. Mikasa and Armin were sitting on the loveseat, Bertholdt hovering over them, resting on his elbows, and Annie sat on the floor near Armin's feet. He was telling jokes.

Bad jokes. _Puns._ Marco listened in with relish.

“Okay, okay,” he said, “Stop me if you've heard this one before.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Why can't the bicycle stand up on its own?”

When no one said a word, he said, “Because its _two tired!_ ” Marco and Christa were the only ones to laugh out loud at the joke, but he didn't miss the smiles that passed over Annie and Mikasa's faces, or the way Bertl's contorted like he was trying to hold in a laugh. Ymir only groaned like she was in pain.

Armin didn't let up, since he seemed to have an infinite pun reserve. After a particularly good one, there was a thump, and Marco could see Bertholdt where he'd fallen on the floor behind the loveseat, shaking with silent laughter. Armin looked very pleased with himself, to have gotten such a reaction out of such a reserved individual.

Marco had noticed the weight on his chest getting heavier and heavier with each pun. He looked down and Jean's eyes were shut, his breathing heavy and slow.

“Jean?” he asked softly, to no response. “Are you asleep?”

The lack of response was answer enough.

Smiling softly down at him, he shifted him up higher on his chest, and he made an unhappy face at the movement. Not very _deeply_ asleep, then. The eyes peeked open, and Marco smiled again. Not actually asleep at all, just faking it.

He freed his good arm and raised it to thread through Jean's short hair, and up into the longer strands on top, caressing his scalp and playing with the hair, down the back of his neck and across the shell of his ear, up into his hair again. Within minutes, he was legitimately asleep, a deadweight on Marco's chest.

Another moment after that, he started snoring, and everyone in the room laughed at him. He didn't stir.

“ _Now's_ the time to take a picture,” Sasha said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Diligently, Marco smiled, and she snapped the picture. She turned the screen around and showed him and this one was even cuter than the last, Jean's mouth hanging half open. Marco grinned widely.

“Send that to me?” he requested, and she nodded brightly.

Marco shifted, preparing to dislodge what he knew would be a _very_ grumpy Jean. “Well, I should put this one to bed.” The tone was one of finality; he was tired too, and fully planned on crawling under the covers next to his near-comatose boyfriend.

Everyone said their goodbyes, and Reiner offered to carry Jean to the room for him, but he knew that Jean would be mortified and furious if he found out (also Eren was snickering the whole time, and Marco respected his boyfriend's fragile ego), so he settled for waking the dragon instead, gently tugging at his ear until he made a face and opened his eyes.

“Hey, get up,” Marco said.

“No,” Jean grunted, nuzzling into Marco's neck and closing his eyes back.

“If you don't, I won't stop Eren when he tries to draw dicks on your face,” Marco said angelically, and the honey-brown eye popped open again, this time with a bleary glare.

“Come on,” Marco said, shoving him gently, “Up.” Begrudgingly, Jean complied, stumbling to his feet, obviously still quite under the influence of alcohol, even though everyone else had sobered up a little bit.

Marco stood up too and put his arm around Jean's waist, leading him back to the bedroom. Someone gave them a catcall. Marco blushed and ignored it, but Jean flipped them off, and a crowd of laughter followed them as he shut the door behind them.

Jean immediately collapsed onto the bed, not moving again. Marco didn't begrudge him that. The blanket was crumpled at the foot of the bed, so he drew it up over Jean before shedding his outer clothes and dropping them in the laundry and crawling in with him.

“Love you, Marco,” Jean mumbled into the pillow. His eyes were closed and his face slack. Marco smiled.

“I love you too, Jean.”

The muffled voices and laughter of their friends lulled him to sleep.

-

When Jean walked into his philosophy lecture the following Tuesday, Professor Levi's dark glare immediately honed in on him, and Jean looked over his shoulder to see if there was someone else. No one was there. The professor crooked a finger at him, beckoning him up to the podium. An icy tendril of fear pierced his heart and he pointed at his chest, mouthing, _'me?_ '

Levi rolled his eyes and said, aloud, “Yes, you brat, get down here.”

The chatter of the students went silent as Jean descended the steps to the front of the lecture theater. When he got to the front, the professor grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, his face still like the moments before the storm.

“If you _ever_ throw another party that lasts until five in the morning in that ugly-ass house of Hanji's, so help me I _will_ call the police. I know you're not all twenty-one.” Jean blanched, and almost stumbled backwards when he was released.

Petra who had been off to the side, wandered up and placed a hand on the professor's shoulder. “Aww, come on, Levi!” she said. “It was a fun party!”

He whirled around, Jean forgotten, though he dared not leave until he'd been dismissed.

“You were there?” He asked, voice flat.

Petra smiled, and announced proudly, “Yep! And the other three guys. I kicked ass at beer pong!”

Levi's expression did not change but somehow his entire being radiated complete and utter betrayal. Finally, he sighed. “Go sit down, Kirschstein.”

“Yes, sir!” Jean said, and all but fled to his accustomed seat a few rows behind Eren, who turned and snickered at him.

“Fuck you, Jaeger,” he said. “Quit laughing or I'll tell him you were at that party, and you were one of the ones actually _up_ until five.”

“Hey, some of us don't need as much beauty sleep as others,” Eren replied, though he looked a little nervous at the threat, his eyes going quickly to where the professor was still being happily talked at by Petra.

Jean snorted. “Wouldn't do you much good, anyway.”

Eren sighed. “The _implication_ was that I'm _naturally_ beautiful.”

“Yeah...not seeing it,” Jean said, getting his notes out of his backpack. “You're pretty much a lost cause.”

Eren flipped him off discreetly and he made a face in reply, and then they both faced forward, not wanting to face the professor's wrath for being disruptive, particularly if he was already in a worse mood than usual.

Despite that, he got bored during the lecture, and Levi posted all his slides online _anyway,_ so Jean furtively slipped his phone out of his pocket and opened his Facebook app.

“Oh no,” he silently whispered to himself as he saw the first update in his news feed and furiously typed a comment, and watching helplessly as the comments continued to flow in.

“Hey,” the sharpness of Levi's voice made Jean snap his head up. “You think I can't see you texting back there, eighth row, third seat from the aisle.” Jean let out a sigh of relief. That was _not_ him. Either way, he was startled enough to put his phone back in his pocket and at least try to pay attention for the rest of the lecture.

-

September droned on uneventfully, and before he was prepared for it, it was time for Midterms. All of Jean's were scheduled within half a week and he was losing hair trying to prepare for the tests.

He knew Marco was in the same boat, his brown skin wan from anxiety and lack of sleep. But it was Saturday night, the weekend before the midterms, and Jean had stopped feeling stress so much as sheer exhaustion and anticipation for it to be over.

He looked at the clock on his phone and saw that it was three in the morning, well past the time he'd be in bed on any decent night. So, technically, it was Sunday.

Marco was across the table from him, still diligently glancing from his textbooks to his class notes to the spiral-bound notebook he was scrawling in. Jean took another long drink from his mug of coffee and looked around, wondering why bad things happened to good people.

They were at Denny's. Because Bertholdt had broken the coffeemaker, and though he had apologized profusely, it had not been replaced yet. Maybe he was secretly evil. Maybe this was his plan all along. Maybe he _wanted_ Jean to fail his exams. Jean squinted suspiciously into his half-empty mug. Either way, they had walked to Denny's at one in the morning, because Denny's had coffee.

He sent Bertl another text message.

To: Bertholdt Hoover

the coffee here is shit

He had finished the mug before the reply came.

From: Bertholdt Hoover

I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY

Almost immediately after, he got another text.

From: Reiner Braun

stop it that's not nice

He was tempted to reply with something petty about how depriving him of caffeine wasn't nice, but he restrained himself, going back to his lecture printouts.

After a while, Marco looked up, sighing heavily and rubbing the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed tightly.

“Need more coffee?” Jean asked.

“Probably here in a minute,” Marco responded around a yawn. “Yeah, definitely. God, everything on the page is fuzzy. Always does this when I'm tired.”

Jean smirked. “You're getting old. We'll have to stop and get you some reading glasses sometime.”

Marco looked at him like he'd had the single greatest idea ever. He leaned closer, and Jean mimicked the motion. “Reading monocle,” Marco said with glee, and Jean could only laugh softly and shake his head.

A moment later the waitress came by and freshened both their coffees, and Marco thanked her with embarrassing sincerity, making her blush. Jean added the appropriate cream and sugar to his mug, while Marco sipped on his black.

They sat for another long while going through notes, books, lecture materials, and Jean was beginning to feel like he _knew_ everything, it was just that spitting it back out onto the exams would be the hard part.

However, a more persistent need than the pursuit of knowledge was tugging at him. All that caffeine had his kidneys working overtime, and he needed to piss like a racehorse.

“Bathroom,” he said to Marco, sliding out of his booth seat. Marco acknowledged him with a wave and he walked toward the illuminated sign indicating the restrooms. Jean noted with interest, on the way there, that all of the other customers in the diner appeared to be truckers, taking a break or whatever truckers did at three in the morning (which, apparently, included going to Denny's). He dismissed it as soon as the door to the bathroom closed behind him.

When he finished washing his hands and went back into the restaurant main, there was a small crowd gathered around the table where he'd left Marco, all of them the truckers he'd noticed before.

Suddenly nervous, he slipped through the crowd, and when he got closer, he could hear Marco's cheerful voice, interspersed with older, gruffer ones, punctuated with laughter.

Jean slipped into the bunch, and saw that there was a bearded man in his sixties showing Marco pictures of young children, presumably his grandkids, and some of the others were clustered to see, too.

When he noticed Jean and his bewildered expression, he laughed lightly, and motioned him to sit down.

“This is Bill!” Marco said, gesturing at the man sitting next to him, with the photos. “We met while you were in the bathroom.”

“Uh. Clearly,” he replied, too exhausted to properly process all this.

Marco turned to his circle of newfound trucker friends and said, “This is Jean, my boyfriend.”

He smiled as best he could and waved, while the rest of the truckers introduced themselves: Robert, Shirley, and Raymond. Bill had introduced himself to Marco because he had run out of sugar at his table, and also because he was curious as to whether or not Marco had been a soldier. He had, of course, laughed it off, explained that it was a car accident, and introduced himself as a student at the university nearby.

All this had, somehow, happened in the five minutes Jean had been in the bathroom.

“What are you majoring in, Marco?” Shirley asked with interest. “My daughter's in college too, you know.”

Marco smiled brightly, and Jean didn't understand how he had such a way with people. “That's wonderful! What's she doing? Oh, I'm psychology, for counseling.”

Shirley told him about her daughter's plans to go to nursing school and he listened actively, asking all the right questions, responding at all the right times. Jean just smiled softly at Marco the whole time, sipping his lukewarm coffee. At some point in the conversation which continued on, a back and forth between Marco and these unexpectedly friendly older people, the waitress came by, seeming a little distressed by the crowd, and asked if anyone needed anything.

“I actually think I need to get going before too long,” Raymond said, looking at the face of his wristwatch with disappointment. “But before I go,” he turned to Jean and narrowed his dark eyes at him.

“You, white boy. Are you being good to him?”

“Uhh,” Jean said, not expecting to be put on the spot like that. The shock on Marco's face betrayed that _he_ hadn't been, either.

“He hesitated,” said Bill.

“Not a good sign,” agreed Shirley.

“I didn't like the look of him from the start,” Robert added, and Jean opened his mouth to defend himself, but Marco did it for him.

“No, no, really! Jean's great and I love him,” he smiled widely, and they backed off.

“Either way,” Raymond said, and reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, pulling out a business card and handing it to Marco. “If he ever says an unkind word to you, you call me. I've got your back.”

The other four nodded and Robert shot Jean a dirty look as he handed Marco his card, the others following suit.

“Friend me on facebook!” Marco called as they said their goodbyes and wandered back to their different sections of the restaurant.

When everyone was out of earshot, Jean asked plaintively, “What did I _do_?”

Marco patted his hand gently, and said, “Well, you _do_ do that thing with your face whenever you're stressed out and tired like you're literally going to rip the toenails off of anyone who looks at you wrong.”

Jean gave him a look. “I do that?”

Marco smiled. “I think it's cute.” Jean sighed.

Deciding that they had studied entirely long enough, they packed up not long after that, paying for their coffee and walking back to the house for a few hours of sleep before the cramming started again.

-

Jean got on his laptop the next day, clicking on his facebook shortcut before going to the online study materials.

When he saw it, he sighed, and whispered to himself, “I can't fucking believe it.”

-

Marco got home from his last midterm on Wednesday feeling like he could cry from relief. Not only was it over, but he felt _confident_ about everything. It looked like those late night cram sessions with Jean had worked out for him.

He trudged up the stairs, which seemed twice as long as usual that day, and into the bedroom, dropping his backpack right inside the door. Jean's exam must not have taken as long as Marco's had, because he was already curled up under the top sheet, eyes closed. A nap sounded like a spectacular idea. Only pausing to kick his jeans off, leaving them on the floor, Marco lifted a corner of the sheet and slid under it too, spooning up behind Jean and throwing his arm around his chest.

Jean sighed and cuddled back against him. Marco closed his own eyes and let the nap happen—it didn't take long.

He awoke in soft evening light, feeling less 'refreshed' and more 'disoriented and not sure what year it was.'

Beside him, Jean was awake, laptop cradled on his thighs.

Marco half-rolled, half-flopped so that his head rested on Jean's hip, and one of his boyfriend's hands immediately went down to stroke Marco's head, absently twisting in his hair. It felt so nice that Marco thought he might go back to sleep, maybe for all night while he was at it, but Jean's voice caught his attention.

“Mm, I'm glad I already paid November's rent early,” he said, “Because my savings are gone, now. I need to go job hunting.”

Marco made a vague noise of sympathy, still too caught between sleep and wakefulness to come up with a coherent response.

“Maybe I'll try the campus bookstore. They're _always_ hiring. That probably means it's a shitty job, but, hey, money, right?”

“Right,” Marco said vaguely, and Jean looked down at him, a soft grin on his face.

With his free hand, he closed the laptop's lid and set it on the floor next to the bed. “Enough of boring topics like _finances,_ ” Jean said. “Wanna have wild, noisy 'we survived midterms' sex?”

In an instant, Marco was considerably more awake.

“Do I ever,” he said, sitting up and blinking the sleep from his eyes.

Jean laughed softly, and kissed him for just a moment. He made the universal 'just a second' gesture and hopped up to go lock the bedroom door. When he came back, he jumped onto the bed, tackling Marco and pinning him under him, the both of them laughing. Marco grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss, long and open, leaving them both breathing a little heavier when they broke apart. Marco's hand roamed over any part of Jean he could touch, his shoulders, his back, chest, stomach, hiking his shirt up to feel his bare skin. Jean left a trail of kisses from his mouth, along his jaw and to that spot on the side of his neck that drove him crazy.

“Hey, Jean—ah!” Marco cried out, just as he nipped at the spot, causing him to arch against him. He could _feel_ the smirk. Marco went on anyway. “How do you wanna do this?”

“Mm,” Jean said, kissing down the side of his neck to where his shoulder was covered by his shirt. “Wanna be inside you.”

“Okay,” Marco said, barely more than a breath, a thrill of heat running through his body at the idea. They had only done that once before.

Grinning, Jean rolled them so that they were on their sides, facing one another. His shirt had ridden up so high that he wiggled out of it entirely, leaving him in just a pair of jeans, which was, honestly, Marco's favorite look for him. They kissed again, all heat and anticipation this time, broken by small moans and gasps. Jean's hand went over Marco's ribs, making him break for laughter, and he retaliated by rolling on top of him. Marco kissed his chest, biting his nipples hard enough to make Jean moan, and soothing the sensitive nubs with his tongue, keeping him gasping.

Jean's hands grasped Marco's ass through his boxers, squeezing it and pulling him down to grind against him. He was hard in his jeans.

Marco rolled so that they were facing each other again, and Jean's hand immediately utilized the new found free space between their bodies to palm at Marco's cock, and Marco's eyes nearly rolled back in his head.

“God damn, Jean,” he said, the words coming out as a whine.

He was undoing the button and zipper to his own jeans, thrusting his other hand into them and the sight made Marco whimper again.

Between gasps, Jean said, “You know, Marco, I don't think I've ever heard you swear before. It's fucking hot.”

Marco didn't have a reply to that, not when that hand was stroking his erection through his boxers.

“Jean,” Marco said after a long while, choosing his next words for maximum impact. “Fuck me.”

And he was scrambling to comply, arching off the bed to kick off his pants and boxers, and Marco stripped off his shirt and underwear, too. Jean was leaning over to the drawer in the nightstand where they kept the lube and uncapped it, hands shaking. He squeezed a generous amount onto his fingers and Marco propped himself up on a pillow, spreading his legs.

He felt the first finger slip in without any strong feelings, but when Jean leaned down between his spread legs, mouthing at his cock as he worked him open, Marco's head fell back, banging against the wall, though he hardly noticed the pain.

“ _Christ,_ Jean,” he breathed, “Who gave you this idea?”

He lifted his head for a second, and admitted, “Uh, Christa, actually.”

“Doesn't matter,” Marco said, though in truth he wasn't surprised, “Keep going.”

Obligingly, Jean's mouth descended on the head of his cock, lips and tongue working the head. He timed it so that he flicked his tongue against the slit at the same time as he crooked his fingertips, hitting Marco's prostate with sweet fire.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said, “I'm ready.”

“Uh,” Jean raised his head again. “You sure?” It hadn't taken long, but he wasn't sure he could take any _more._

“Put it in me,” he said amiably, and Jean rolled his eyes at Marco before getting a condom from the bedside drawer. Marco watched, licking his lips as Jean rolled it onto himself.

Jean leaned over him, hooking an arm around one of Marco's legs and using his free hand to line up his cock with his entrance. Marco's head fell back again as Jean pushed inside him. After a moment, he adjusted to the size, and Jean moved, thrusting slowly at first, but his stuttering rhythm increased speed quickly. With a loose fist, he gripped his own cock, still slick from saliva and his own precum.

They were both too strung out from the sleepless nights and exam stress to draw it out, so when Jean's rhythm faltered, and he curled in on himself, a wordless cry escaping his lips as he came, he didn't try to stifle it or hold back.

Marco stroked his erection with more intensity as Jean rode out his orgasm, and Marco finally felt his own climax building when Jean pulled out, flopping beside him and adding his hand to Marco's, his breathy moans growing more unrestrained as he felt himself going over the edge, bucking hard into their joined hands, striping his chest with semen.

Jean tossed him the shirt he'd been wearing, and Marco used it to wipe himself off as best he could, while Jean took the tied-off condom to the trash can by the bedroom door.

“What the...damn it,” he said, stopping to pick something up.

“Hm?” Marco asked.

Jean sighed. “It's a note from Connie and Sasha. It says, 'Congrats on the sex. Keep it down.' Like they have any room to talk, with their farting at all hours of the night...”

Marco smiled, a little embarrassed, and went to put on a fresh pair of clothes so that he'd be presentable when he went downstairs to make dinner in a bit.

First, he grabbed his tablet and checked his email, scanned through local and global news, and went over to his facebook, typing a status update. When he looked back at the tab, two minutes later, he went bright red.

“Raymond, no,” he whispered as he hit 'like' on the comment.

Maybe he just. Wouldn't go down for dinner tonight. He could already imagine the comments, and he wasn't enjoying the thoughts.

_-_

“Mm-hm,” he said into the phone, “Yeah. Um, this weekend wouldn't be a bad time, I don't think?”

“You're sure it's okay for me to meet him?” His mom's voice was cautious over the phone, and Jean smiled gingerly.

“Yeah, mom. I spent a whole two weeks with his parents, remember? I think it's fair if you meet.”

“Um, okay, then, is tonight okay, actually? It's Friday so...” she asked, trailing off, and picking up again. “I'll take the metro down and buy you dinner?”

“Mom, you don't...you don't have to do that,” Jean said, grimacing. He knew his mom barely had enough to make ends meet as it was.

“I want to do this for you and Marco,” she said resolutely, and Jean knew that there was no talking her down, at this point. His quiet, sad mother had an iron will.

“Okay,” he conceded, and went on, “How about seven?”

“I will be there,” she said, with more cheer than before, and she and Jean said their goodbyes before he hung up.

He went back inside from the overgrown backyard, and up the stairs.

“Hey,” he said to Marco, who was sitting in the spinny desk chair with his tablet in his lap. He looked up questioningly. “We have dinner plans tonight.”

“Uh...we do?” Marco asked, confusion evident in his voice.

“Yeah. My mom wants to meet you, and I told her that since she just lives over in downtown Trost, she should come by sometime.”

Marco perked up. “How nice!” He was just _inordinately_ pleased that Jean and his mom were communicating again, after so many years of tense silence. Something about 'family' being 'important to him.' Jean was actually a little touched.

Marco immediately jumped up and ran to the closet. “Oh, god, oh, god, what should I wear?”

“Marco, babe,” Jean said, as he flipped through nice shirts frantically. “You could show up in a wife beater and crocs and she'd love you.”

Marco looked at him with watery eyes, looking somewhat overwhelmed by emotion.

“I mean—you might lose _my_ affection if you do but—“

“You called me 'babe,'” he said, and Jean felt his cheeks go hot.

“Uh, yeah, I guess I did.”

“I like it,” Marco said, a little shyly, kicking his feet like a child. It was hella cute and Jean was undone.

“Okay,” he said with a smile, and Marco returned it before his face went serious.

“But seriously, what should I wear?”

-

Marco ended up wearing a striped button up, tucked into khaki dress pants. Jean hadn't changed out of his jeans and t shirt. Reiner had laughed at the contrast between them and insisted on taking a picture. Jean had grumbled that his mom was just going to take more, but relented.

Shortly before the meeting time, they walked over to the bus stop where they would be meeting Jean's mom, Marco bouncing with nervous excitement the whole way there.

“You seem a little anxious,” Jean said, bumping him gently.

“I just. I want to make a good impression,” he replied.

“You'll be fine. Way better than I was with your parents, at least—god, remember when your dad walked in on us in the kitchen?” Marco laughed at the memory, hilarious in retrospect.

The bus pulled around the corner and stopped at the station. A few people got off, including a blond woman with pale grey eyes.

“Mom,” Jean called to her, and she rushed over. They didn't embrace, Marco noticed, but there was warmth in their greeting. Well, years of tension couldn't be fixed all at once, he supposed.

She turned to him, and the first thing that Marco noticed was that Jean had been right. She _did_ look tired, though her smile was wide upon meeting him. “It's so nice to finally meet you,” she said warmly.

“No, no, it's my pleasure,” Marco replied, reaching out his hand to shake hers. She didn't even hesitate in offering her left instead of her right, and he smiled.

“I'm Joslyn,” she said, not offering a last name. “Well! Where would you like to eat?”

Jean looked at Marco, and he put his hand up. “No, no, no, no, no, do _not_ make me make this decision!”

Jean and Joslyn both laughed, and Jean offered, “ _Well,_ there's a Denny's not too far from here. Maybe Marco can make more friends.”

He blushed, and said, “I prefer not to go to Denny's unless it's three in the morning. What about that little deli across the street from the corner store?”

“See? You can make decisions,” Jean said, nudging him gently, and Joslyn nodded.

“Show me the way,” she said brightly. “And what's that about you making friends at Denny's?” she asked Marco. They told her the whole story on the way to the deli, and had her laughing at her son's misfortune. She was pretty, when she laughed, and Marco could see the beautiful young woman she must have been, not so many years ago, when life had been kinder to her.

Once inside, they took a seat at one of the small tabled, as directed by a waitress. They chatted idly as they perused the menu, Joslyn asking them both about their classes and general life questions. When the waitress came by they placed their orders—a salad for Joslyn, quiche for Marco, and a sandwich for Jean.

While they were waiting, Jean excused himself to go to the bathroom, and as soon as he was out of sight, Joslyn leaned over to him, a watery smile on her face.

“I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you alone,” she said, and Marco's eyes widened in fear. “Nothing bad, I promise,” she went on, at his reaction.

“Okay,” he said, inclining his head.

“Has Jean told you a lot about...our family?” she asked.

“He's told me...enough, I think, to understand what you're getting at,” Marco said, not wanting to bring up specifics.

She smiled bitterly and looked down. “It hurt him. He was so closed off, for so long. Not just from me, but from everyone.” She looked up, then, and her hand went to his wrist where it was on the table. He didn't pull away. “He's changed so much since he's been with you. And I just. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Marco wanted to cry. Jean couldn't have been an easy child to raise alone, especially after being abandoned by the man she loved. He moved his arm enough to grasp her hand in his. “Thank you,” he whispered, not trusting his voice, “For your son.” He licked his lips, not sure if he should stop there, but the words came out anyway. “I love him.”

She squeezed his hand before pulling away. “I know. And he loves you.”

He smiled at her and saw tears in her eyes, too. “I know.”

When Jean returned to the table, they had both composed themselves, and were laughing at Marco retelling one of Armin's terrible puns he remembered from the housewarming party.

Jean rolled his eyes at him, but from the way he squeezed Marco's knee under the table, he could tell that he was pleased.

The food arrived before too long and they were all cheerful through it, though Marco tried to protest when Joslyn insisted on paying for everything.

“Just let it happen,” Jean said, “She's not easily dissuaded.”

The woman in question grinned brightly and handed her card to the waitress. Bill settled, they walked back out into the street, streaked with orange and shadow from the setting sun. The walk back to the bus stop was in much the same spirit as the rest of the evening, light and easy, and when the bus pulled around the corner to take Joslyn back to the central district, she hugged both of them.

It left Jean a little stunned and looking unsure of himself, but he recovered quickly, and they walked back to the house in companionable quiet.

When the garish green and mauve walls came into view, Marco finally said, “I think that went well.”

“Yeah,” Jean said, his voice soft, thoughtful. “It was nice to see her laugh.”

Marco made a noise of agreement, and bumped at Jean until he got the idea and put his arm around Marco's waist, their hips bumping together as they walked. The streetlights flickered on as they walked up the path to the house's front door.

Marco unlocked it and opened the door, Jean close behind him. He turned, and kissed him briefly, just because he could.

All things considered, he couldn't help but think, he felt like they were both doing pretty well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 03 Oct 2014: After a lot of thought and deliberation, I have tentatively decided to end the story here. The next chapter would have been an extreme mood whiplash from the previous three (basically, the terrorists/crime organization from chapter one would have made another appearance) and the more I think about it, the more I don't want to change the happy tone of the story like that. I'm not done writing, but I think it's best that Radiate end here. I'm really sorry to everyone who had their hopes up for more of this story, but I would have been even more sorry if the next chapter had been a huge let down.
> 
> EDIT 15 Mar 2014: [Tumblr user Geekerypokery](http://geekerypokery.tumblr.com) was kind enough to let me use this beautiful art in the story body. ;-; Thank you!!

**Author's Note:**

> I have a favor to ask of you! If you're going to say nice things about my fic on tumblr (or not nice; i am open to criticism) would you tag it "mountain laurel au" so I can see your post? Thanks!
> 
> Minor edits, 1.17.14: Made Hanji gender-neutral.


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